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Klansman (Imperial Wizard III)
Artist
Andres Serrano
(American, born 1953)
Date1990
MediumCibachrome print
DimensionsUnframed: 60 x 49 1/2 in. (152.4 x 125.73 cm)
Framed: 65 x 54 3/4 x 5/8 in. (165.1 x 139.07 x 1.59 cm)
Framed: 65 x 54 3/4 x 5/8 in. (165.1 x 139.07 x 1.59 cm)
Credit LineCollection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase made possible by a grant from The Burnett Foundation
Object number1995.14
Status
Not on viewCopyright© Andres Serrano
Category
Label TextKlansman (Imperial Wizard III), 1990, simultaneously attracts and offends. With its dramatic play of light and dark, incredible detail, electric lime-green color, and technical perfection, the photograph is beautiful to behold. That this exquisite composition monumentalizes a member of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan is profoundly disturbing. Neither satirically nor ironically presented, the figure gazes squarely—though his eyes are hidden behind his hood—at the viewer. Repellent and seductive, Klansman (Imperial Wizard III) embodies the powerful, unsettling ambiguity that characterizes Andres Serrano’s art.
Serrano created Klansman (Imperial Wizard III) in the aftermath of the intense controversy surrounding his inflammatory image Piss Christ, 1987. That five-foot-high photograph of a cheap plaster crucifix immersed in urine was a primary target for conservative attacks on government funding of the arts in the late 1980s. The artist, a former Catholic who had been drawn to the church for aesthetic rather than spiritual reasons, asserted that he was not a heretic nor intent on destroying an icon but rather was concerned with making a new, provocative image.
Photographing the Klan represented a cultural and racial challenge for the artist, the son of an African Cuban mother and Honduran father. Klansman (Imperial Wizard III) both intrigues and frightens. Virtually filling the composition from top to bottom, the half-illuminated, green-hooded man projects a powerful, assertive presence. At the same time, the contrasting darkness that engulfs the rest of the body (including the eyes), and which silences the surrounding space, renders the figure mysterious and spooky. Serrano’s technical and aesthetic skill as a photographer allows Klansman (Imperial Wizard III) to be a commanding and arresting image that challenges social boundaries and resists comfortable interpretation.
Serrano created Klansman (Imperial Wizard III) in the aftermath of the intense controversy surrounding his inflammatory image Piss Christ, 1987. That five-foot-high photograph of a cheap plaster crucifix immersed in urine was a primary target for conservative attacks on government funding of the arts in the late 1980s. The artist, a former Catholic who had been drawn to the church for aesthetic rather than spiritual reasons, asserted that he was not a heretic nor intent on destroying an icon but rather was concerned with making a new, provocative image.
Photographing the Klan represented a cultural and racial challenge for the artist, the son of an African Cuban mother and Honduran father. Klansman (Imperial Wizard III) both intrigues and frightens. Virtually filling the composition from top to bottom, the half-illuminated, green-hooded man projects a powerful, assertive presence. At the same time, the contrasting darkness that engulfs the rest of the body (including the eyes), and which silences the surrounding space, renders the figure mysterious and spooky. Serrano’s technical and aesthetic skill as a photographer allows Klansman (Imperial Wizard III) to be a commanding and arresting image that challenges social boundaries and resists comfortable interpretation.