Andres Serrano says he doesn’t set out to be a controversial artist – but he’s certainly proved to be one during his career.
The 75-year-old New Yorker first found fame (or infamy in the eyes of his critics) with one of the most notorious works of art in history – his 1987 photograph titled Piss Christ.
The depiction of a crucifix submerged in urine led to protests denouncing the image as blasphemous – and it was vandalised while on display in a French art museum in 2011.
“I don’t do work to be controversial,” he tells Sky News. “I do work that I feel like I need to do.
“For some reason, I’ve touched on many cultural things that have become cultural flashpoints.”
Andres Serrano spoke to Sky News
Now, two of Serrano’s most high-profile and controversial subjects for his artwork are dominating headlines around the world.
Serrano photographed Jeffrey Epstein for a portrait in 2019, four months before the paedophile financier was found dead in a prison cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. It is one of the last known images of Epstein, whose death was ruled to be suicide.
Years earlier, Serrano took a portrait photo of Donald Trump in 2004 – the same year the property tycoon began starring on The Apprentice TV series.
As Trump faces scrutiny over his past links to Epstein, and pressure to release all files in the sex offender’s case, Serrano offers a rare insight into the two men.
Photographing Epstein
Serrano’s portrait of Epstein was “23 years in the making”, he says, after he agreed to do it in exchange for a sculpture the wealthy collector owned that the artist had wanted since the mid-1990s.
Pic: Andres Serrano
At the time, Epstein was already a convicted sex offender who had served time in jail after pleading guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Despite this, Serrano says he didn’t have reservations about taking the photo because he “wanted the statue” that Epstein owned.
Serrano believed the 16th century statue of the Virgin Mary should be paired with one he owned of St John.
“Jeffrey Epstein is rolling in his grave laughing about how he is still talked about,” the artist says.
“He wasn’t an interesting guy. Except for being a paedophile, there was nothing about him that should have made him so interesting to so many people.”
Epstein ‘collected people’
Serrano – who was first introduced to Epstein in the mid-90s – says he and his wife had “a few meetings” with him and considered him to be a “strange guy”.
He says he has “shocked” when he learnt Epstein had been “exposed and indicted as a paedophile”.
“We never saw that side of Epstein,” he says.
“To me, he looked like a guy who didn’t have a job and was always on a vacation having fun.
“I never asked him about where his money came from. I knew he was very rich. I also knew he knew a lot of people.
“Jeffrey Epstein did not collect art but he collected people. He made it his business to know everybody, anybody who was a celebrity, famous, rich – anyone with a reputation.”
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Pic: NBC
Serrano says he doesn’t “judge” the subjects of his photography, who have also included members of the Ku Klux Klan, and he was “happy” with the outcome of the Epstein portrait.
But how does he think Epstein’s victims feel seeing the image?
“I don’t see how one thing has to do with the other,” he replies.
“Does that mean the victims would feel better looking at the portrait of him in the mugshot, which is a horrible picture?”
Jeffrey Epstein in 2017. File pic: New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP
He adds: “Their take on Jeffrey Epstein is very different from everyone else’s. So they see something that we can’t even imagine what they see.”
Photographing Trump
While Serrano believes Epstein was uninteresting, his opinion of Trump couldn’t be more different.
Pic: Andres Serrano
He describes the US president as “fascinating” – so much so that he collected more than 1,000 items linked to him for an art installation called The Game: All Things Trump.
The objects, products and items of merchandise had been created for Trump’s businesses and brands, including Trump Vodka, Trump University and even Trump Steaks.
An 11ft-tall sign spelling the word “Ego” from the Trump Taj Mahal resort in Atlantic City also featured in the display, along with Serrano’s own portrait of Trump.
An 11ft-tall sign spelling the word ‘Ego’ from the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. Pic: Andres Serrano
He calls the photograph “one of the best portraits I’ve ever seen of Donald Trump”, and reveals he had a particular way of working with him – staying quiet.
“I didn’t give him any reason to upset him,” Serrano says.
“He sizes you up very quickly. (I didn’t want to say) anything that would turn him off or that would bore him or that would make him in any way want to leave.”
‘Quiet’ Trump ‘tried to figure me out’
Serrano – whose photo of Trump was taken for the artist’s 2004 portrait series called America – says he spent about half an hour with the future US president to capture the image, describing him as “quiet” throughout the process.
“I often like to leave people to their own thoughts when I’m taking a portrait,” the artist says.
“I like to make the kind of portraits where it feels like I’m not even there. It’s just you, the viewer and the sitter.
“I think he was just trying to figure me out. And so since we didn’t talk, you know it was just a silent conversation between us.”
Read more:
All we know about Trump and Epstein’s ‘friendship’
What’s in Epstein’s ‘birthday book’?
The artist won’t answer directly when asked if he is a Trump supporter but calls him “the epitome of the American dream”.
“I don’t think the art world has ever taken Donald Trump seriously except as a subject for ridicule,” he says.
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‘It’s a Democrat hoax’ – Trump on Epstein files
“My perception and my intent with Donald Trump was far from that, because I think that’s a very simplistic way of doing things.
“My view of him is that he’s a really smart guy.
“Whatever you think about him, you can’t argue with the fact that he often gets his way and I think that’s because Donald Trump is persistent. He doesn’t let go. He’s like a pitbull who doesn’t let go.”
‘Epstein story will be buried’
Serrano also took a portrait photograph of Trump’s former presidential election rival Kamala Harris for The New Yorker magazine but says the circumstances were very different.
“When I do portrait for a magazine… I’m happy to do for them but there’s no skin in the game for me,” he says.
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Despite the pressure facing Trump to make public all files related to the Epstein case, Serrano believes “the story will die at some point”.
“It’s kind of like the Kennedy assassination. People have been obsessed with conspiracy theories, theories about John F Kennedy’s assassination for years,” he says.
“It’s a story that comes and goes, but I think this story will go.
“At some point, maybe some point soon, the Jeffrey Epstein story will be buried, along with Jeffrey Epstein.”