Why Northern Ireland – and the rest of the world – needs Andres Serrano's Torture pictures

Helpless and naked before the camera, Serrano’s ‘victims’ make it impossible to ignore man’s inhumanity to man

There are two reasons that Northern Ireland is a particularly pungent place for Andres Serrano to show his Torture pictures, currently on view at Void in Derry. One is the violent history of the Troubles. The other is the Christian imagery that haunts the artist.

In Serrano’s notorious image Piss Christ, a crucifix is suspended in a tank of orange urine. When it was made in 1987, Northern Ireland was in the midst of something that resembled a civil war. Protestants fought Catholics and the IRA fought the British army. Altogether, 3,600 people were killed in the Troubles between 1968 and 1998, when the Good Friday agreement began today’s peace.

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