The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 25, 2024

Blood and Semen V

Blood and Semen V

1990
(American, 1950-)
America, 20th century
silver dye bleach process color print (Cibachrome)
Image: 40 x 59.6 cm (15 3/4 x 23 7/16 in.); Paper: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.); Matted: 71.1 x 81.3 cm (28 x 32 in.)
Anonymous Donor and Photographers + Friends United Against AIDS 1995.204.7
© Andres Serrano
Location: not on view

Description

Serrano came to prominence in the 1980s for artwork that provoked and angered American right-wing legislators, including the late Senator Jesse Helms. Known as the "culture wars," it was a time when Helms and other politicians attacked the National Endowment for the Arts for supporting artwork they deemed obscene and offensive. While Serrano's images may evoke strong reactions, his subject matter remains elementally human, whether he is depicting religious icons, closely cropped human figures, objects of violence, or in the case of this work, bodily fluids. Produced at the height of the AIDS crisis in America, Blood and Semen V is a mixture of blood and semen seen as if under a microscope. Importantly, both fluids carry equally productive and destructive power—each can produce life through transfusions or conception, or hasten death via complications caused by HIV/AIDS. While visually abstract, the image is a poignant commentary on the cycle of life to death and back again.
  • Anonymous Donor
    December 4, 1995
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: P. 317
  • Main gallery rotation (gallery 229): April 20, 2015 - October 19, 2015.
  • {{cite web|title=Blood and Semen V|url=false|author=Andres Serrano, Portfolio II published by Photographers + Friends United Against AIDS|year=1990|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1995.204.7