Quotes by Andres Serrano

• Unfortunately, the Church's position on most contemporary issues makes it hard to take them seriously.
• My work is intensely personal.
• I usually refer to myself as Hispanic.
• In my work, I explore my own Catholic obsessions.
• My use of the medium - photography - is in some ways traditional.
• My work has social implications, it functions in a social arena.
• I think if the Vatican is smart, someday they'll collect my work.
• I am drawn to Christ but I have real problems with the Catholic Church.
• One of the things that I am happy about in my life as an artist is that I am not considered a Hispanic artist.
• Some people have compared the Klan images to ecclesiastical figures.
• Whenever possible, I operate outside the system.
• I like to believe that rather than destroy icons, I make new ones.
• People have to find ways of explaining the work.
• I am an artist first and a photographer second.
• I like the aesthetics of the Church.
• I don't think that because I am Hispanic I should therefore do Hispanic work.
• An artist is nothing without his or her obsessions, and I have mine.
• Being born, especially being born a person of color, is a political act in itself.
• I am just an artist.
• I have always felt that I am the sum total of my parts.
• I have always felt that my work is religious, not sacrilegious.
• 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.
• I have never voted in my life.
• I like Church furniture.
• I like going to Church for aesthetic reasons, rather than spiritual ones.
• 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.