Oral history interview with Andres Serrano, 2009 July 29-30 Funding for this interview was provided by the Brown Foundation. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Andres Serrano on July 29-30, 2009. The interview took place in New York, N.Y., and was conducted by Frank H. Goodyear for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This interview is part of the Oral History Interviews of American Photographers. Andres Serrano has reviewed the transcript. His corrections and emendations appear below in brackets appended by initials. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview FRANK H. GOODYEAR: This is Frank Goodyear interviewing Andres Serrano in the artist’s home in New York City on July 29, 2009, for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Disc No. 1. First of all, do you have any sort of questions about this? ANDRES: SERRANO: I have one question. Is the mike too far? Because I could bring an extension cord if we want it closer? MR. GOODYEAR: Talk again. MR. SERRANO: Is the mike too far? Because I can bring an extension cord if we want it closer. MR. GOODYEAR: It’s good. MR. SERRANO: Great. MR. GOODYEAR: It’s cool. Some of the questions are kind of, what can I say? Just kind of factual information about your biography some hard—we’re just sometimes collecting just details about your life. So really what I want to do really today is talk about the first half of your life. Then tomorrow we’ll talk about the second half. And, you know, perhaps the place to start is when and where were you born? MR. SERRANO: You know that’s a very good question and a good start. Because there are many things that disturb me as an artist. You know I feel like I’ve been maligned and misunderstood. But one of the most disturbing things that I have found as an artist is when people think that I’m from somewhere else. You know I was born and raised in New York City. I was born in New York in 1950. You know I’ve lived in this country all my life, and I’ve never lived anywhere else except New York City. And, you know, from time to time I’ve seen in bios and publications, that you know, the fact that I was born in Cuba or that I was born in Honduras or Haiti. And, you know, I really got upset with Lisa Phillips, you know, who at the time was working as a curator at the Whitney Museum [Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC] when they came out with that big book on twentieth century American artists. And I was horrified when I opened that section to my section, the first line said that, you know, that I was Puerto Rican. I had been born in Puerto Rico. I mean I was livid about that. And I had to send a letter to Lisa and to Max Anderson as well. Because you know to me it’s one thing when people, you know, say it out of stupidity and ignorance. But when you’re writing a book that purports to be not only a history but factual, you know, about such an important thing as American artists and you get the facts wrong, I mean that to me was unacceptable. Especially because no one else has ever called me Puerto Rican. MR. GOODYEAR: [Laughs] So when you pointed this out to Lisa and to Maxwell Anderson, what was their response to that. MR. SERRANO: They were very apologetic. But still, I felt like a—there was no excuse for it. Even the Village Voice and the New York Times, whenever they do anything, they constantly call, the fact checkers, you know, constantly call to make sure you get things right. And so, you know, I was very upset by that. Just like I was upset when I saw a review of my book America and Other Work by Andres Serrano that Taschen [Taschen, Germany, 2004] put out a few years ago, some magazine, you know, said something about artist Serrano paying homage to his adopted country. And I had to call up the editor and say: Where the hell do you think I came from? You know. Again, getting back to origin and getting back to—which brings me to another point: Ethnicity, this thing about ethnicity. As I said, I was born in New York City. My mother was born in Key West, Florida. However, she was raised in Cuba because her parents were Cuban. And so she came back to this country in the late forties, and I was born in 1950. Now, more than once, I’ve seen in my bio—and again, it’s upsetting to me—where they refer to my Afro-Cuban mother and Honduran father. And I feel like, yes, I can say my mother was Cuban, although I question this Afro-Cuban. And in fact, the one time after a lecture, this man came up to me and, you know, he was a Caucasian man. But when he started speaking to me, it turned out he was Cuban. And he said to me, you know, “What’s this crap about your Afro-Cuban mother. She was Cuban, period.” You know. And he was right, you know. And so I also, you know, and more than once I’ve seen it in bios. I did a lecture at Drexel [University —AS] a few years ago, where they sent me the bios of all the speakers that were doing to be doing something there. And they had something about Betsey Johnson and something about someone else. And then led by Andres Serrano of Afro-Cuban parents and Honduran. And, you know, I felt like, well, you didn’t tell me. That would be okay if you told me where Betsey Johnson’s parents were, where the other speakers’ parents were from, you know, But the fact that you choose to ethnicisize it you know, unnecessarily. I feel like, what is that the only thing you can come up with? Is that the only thing that matters to you? And so because I feel like it’s a sort of a profiling, meaning, you know, what? This guy, he’s an American, but he’s from somewhere else. He’s got something other than American in him. And I feel like, you know, we all have something else, you know. None of us are true Americans. We all came—or at least our parents came— from somewhere else. But it seems to be only in people of color where that matters. If you’re white, it doesn’t matter if your parents were Ukrainian or Russian or Polish. You know, once you’re white and born here, that’s all that matters. And so I have issues with people trying to put that into the bio. I always have said that, you know, I want to be seen as a New York City artist, that’s it. MR. GOODYEAR: That’s where you’re from. MR. SERRANO: You know once you meet me, and if you have questions, I can answer your questions. But where my parents came from should not be the most important thing in my life. MR. GOODYEAR: Sure. However, do tell me, tell me a little bit more about your parents. What did they do? And tell me a little about the household in which you were raised in Brooklyn? MR. SERRANO: Yes. Well, I was born in Manhattan, and we lived in Manhattan until I was about seven years old. And then the family moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I like to say that I’m one of the first artists who moved into Williamsburg in the late fifties. [They laugh.] But my father I didn’t really know well. He left us when I was very young; I was probably an infant. And so I was raised by my mother. And in Brooklyn we lived in my grandmother’s house on Havemeyer Street, 95 Havemeyer Street. And so, you know, my home consisted of my grandmother living downstairs. She owned the building, so she had the big apartment downstairs with a female cousin who was like an older sister. And then my mother and I lived in one of the apartments upstairs. So I was raised primarily by my mother. Yes, my father was a merchant marine from Honduras. He came to the States in the late forties, met my mother and married her. But then went back, I believe in the early fifties went back to Honduras. MR. GOODYEAR: So what interested you as a child? I mean what are your memories of growing up in Williamsburg? MR. SERRANO: Well, I liked the neighborhood. You know I lived on a corner of Williamsburg which at the time was primarily Italian. And a few blocks from me was more Hispanic, Puerto Rican population. And then a few blocks up further than that, you know, on the south side, was the Hassidic community which is still there, of course. But, you know, I think I have very pleasant memories of my childhood; that even though I was an only child and I sort of had a love-hate relationship with my mother, so it meant that I had a certain kind of distance from her.