Andres Serrano Quotes

#1. I am an artist first and a photographer second.

Andres Serrano

#2. My use of the medium - photography - is in some ways traditional.

Andres Serrano

#3. I don't really think I am interested in the macabre, but I am curious about death. That's normal ... The only certainty in life is that we're all going to die. It would be unnatural not to think about death once in a while.

Andres Serrano

#4. I am just an artist.

Andres Serrano

#5. I say things, but I say them indirectly. At the same time, I try to make my images as direct as possible.

Andres Serrano

#6. My work has social implications, it functions in a social arena.

Andres Serrano

#7. I have never voted in my life.

Andres Serrano

#8. One of the things that I am happy about in my life as an artist is that I am not considered a Hispanic artist.

Andres Serrano

#9. Unfortunately, the Church's position on most contemporary issues makes it hard to take them seriously.

Andres Serrano

#10. In my work, I explore my own Catholic obsessions.

Andres Serrano

#11. An artist is nothing without his or her obsessions, and I have mine.

Andres Serrano

#12. People have to find ways of explaining the work.

Andres Serrano

#13. I usually refer to myself as Hispanic.

Andres Serrano

#14. There's nothing wrong with provocative art work: I even look forward to the day when I can take pictures which will disturb even me.

Andres Serrano

#15. I don't think that because I am Hispanic I should therefore do Hispanic work.

Andres Serrano

#16. I have never been able to see myself as fitting into one category, and I have never been able to limit my contact with people to one group of people.

Andres Serrano

#17. I have always felt that I am the sum total of my parts.

Andres Serrano

#18. As a former Catholic, and as someone who even today is not opposed to being called a Christian, I felt I had every right to use the symbols of the Church and resented being told not to.

Andres Serrano

#19. My work is intensely personal.

Andres Serrano

#20. Oftentimes we love the thing we hate and vice versa.

Andres Serrano

#21. Whenever possible, I operate outside the system.

Andres Serrano

#22. I like to believe that rather than destroy icons, I make new ones.

Andres Serrano

#23. I am drawn to Christ but I have real problems with the Catholic Church.

Andres Serrano

#24. I like the aesthetics of the Church.

Andres Serrano

#25. I like going to Church for aesthetic reasons, rather than spiritual ones.

Andres Serrano

#26. I like Church furniture.

Andres Serrano

#27. I have always felt that my work is religious, not sacrilegious.

Andres Serrano

#28. I think if the Vatican is smart, someday they'll collect my work.

Andres Serrano

#29. Artists are a free society's greatest advocates and its best bulwarks. Their triumphs are civilization's triumphs.

Andres Serrano

#30. Some people have compared the Klan images to ecclesiastical figures.

Andres Serrano

#31. Being born, especially being born a person of color, is a political act in itself.

Andres Serrano