Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Nerdrum Affair

Perhaps you remember that, a while back, I wrote that I was not in the business of trashing successful living artists. Because maybe I'd have to work with them later. Well, I've exhibited with one, and I'm about to talk some smack about him, because this was what he had to say:
There is no doubt about it: In the previous century Hitler was the greatest Artist, greater even than Picasso.
Who said that? Well, you might not have heard of him. He's a Scandinavian painter named Odd Nerdrum. As these things go, very successful - his paintings sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop. Mine, ahem, do not. Nerdrum saw fit to post this little observation on his Facebook page, where he is in the habit of posting delphic epigrams once in a while. I was among the first to notice the post, so I had the opportunity to be an early commenter. Let's see what I had to say:
I'm sorry, I find this unbelievably offensive, and I will be deleting you from my friend list now. This kind of pathetic wit is harmless enough until you start treading on the dead bodies of my relatives. You can go to fucking hell.
So I crossed that rubicon, and I may as well elaborate a little bit on how, exactly, Nerdrum can go to fucking hell. I've been thinking it over.

Nerdrum's post has a plain-language meaning, and its plain language meaning is a praise of Hitler.

Nerdrum's post also has an ironic art-world-critical meaning, in which he is attacking the moribund state of art by saying that, if Picasso is your paragon of good art, then Hitler, in your aesthetic cosmology, is even better.

Nerdrum's post is further modified by a labored and, by my lights, dubious distinction he has been working on for years between what he calls Art, of which he disapproves (think: modernism and post-modernism), versus Kitsch, which is supposed to be the good stuff (think: Rubens, Velazquez, Titian, etc.).

The Hitler quip triggered a flurry of comments, about 180-200, before the brave Mr. Nerdrum deleted the post. Hearteningly, many of the comments were to the effect of Nerdrum being a prick. The rest were defences, mostly on the basis of contending that those opposed suffered either a lack of relevant information, or a lack of proper interpretation, or a lack of sense of humor. Two actual Nazis crawled out of Nerdrum's list of 5,000 friends to defend, not so much Nerdrum, as Hitler.

I am going to tell you happy few right now that you have enough information to formulate a valid opinion of Nerdrum's post. It is obviously an ironic comment on some particular of the state of art, art criticism, and the art world.

What is just as obvious is that, by collapsing the moral distinction between anything to do with bad art, and the most profound monstrosity of which humanity is capable, Nerdrum has betrayed an astonishingly flattened moral topography. Let's consider the comment in light of a few options with regard to its interpretation:

1. Its plain-language meaning is its true meaning: he's praising Hitler.
2. It's an ironic critique: he has the moral topography problem.
3. It's meant to provoke: he has the moral topography problem.
4. It's meant to "inspire thought and discussion": he has the moral topography problem.

There is no way around concluding that he is either a Hitlerite, or has a disturbingly casual indifference to, and incomprehension of, evil.

Imagine spending time with a madman. In every particular, he is quite ordinary. He is friendly, considerate, perfectly reasonable in his conversation. Walking along the street with this madman, you pass a random stranger, and, out of the blue, he says something about how funny it would be to do this stranger a grievous harm of a particularly inventive and gruesome type. He chuckles a little bit, then continues with the previous discussion. He continues to be friendly, considerate, and reasonable. But the comment cannot be unsaid. Now, you have become aware that he is a madman, and nothing else he ever says will make it possible to consider him sane.

Nerdrum is not a madman. Rather, he is evil. His Facebook post is akin to the chance utterance of the madman: to Nerdrum, it was an acceptable comment. Perhaps meant to provoke, perhaps meant to outrage the squares - but overall, acceptable. And this makes us aware of something about him which any subsequent apologies (and they have not been forthcoming) cannot undo.

In kind, it is similar to, if less audacious and original than, unlistenable German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen's public comment of September 16, 2001:
Well, what happened there is, of course—now all of you must adjust your brains—the biggest work of art there has ever been. The fact that spirits achieve with one act something which we in music could never dream of, that people practise ten years madly, fanatically for a concert. And then die. And that is the greatest work of art that exists for the whole Cosmos. Just imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on this single performance, and then five thousand people are driven to Resurrection. In one moment. I couldn't do that. Compared to that, we are nothing, as composers. [...] It is a crime, you know of course, because the people did not agree to it. They did not come to the "concert". That is obvious. And nobody had told them: "You could be killed in the process."
Nerdrum's supporters can, and have, argued that whereas Stockhausen was serious, Nerdrum was ironic. This is a distinction without a difference. The same moral flattening occurs in both instances, regardless of intent. It is not a comment you could think of without the moral flattening.

The moral flattening is not idiopathic. It is not the outcome of some lone lunacy. It is a symptom of a so-called artistic demeanor, a demeanor which considers the question of good and evil to be terribly passe, to have no claim on the artist's attention. It is a symptom of the decadence of culture. And in this respect, Nerdrum's comment was marvelously clarifying for me. Why?

Because I have spent years worrying about Nerdrum. I could never reach a conclusion about him. He has fabulous technique, and sometimes I am inclined to think of him as a legitimate artist. Other times, I am inclined to think of him as a fetishist whose work is best suited to the cover of Omni magazine. I have never been able to put my finger on what bothered me about his work, until now. Let's take a look at a few of his paintings:



In the last instance, you might recall my previous thoughts on mouths and eyes. The partial or total effacement of the eyes is a common motif in Nerdrum's portraits. He has a mouth fixation similar to that of De Kooning, who cut photographs of mouths out of magazines and stuck them directly on the canvas as a starting point for his faces. When he is not painting portraits, Nerdrum often paints hieratic figures in barren, threatening landscapes. Frequently, violence is implied or explicit:




...and for years, I have been unable to solve what it was about Nerdrum that was troubling me. Lately, I have fallen in with a crowd of painters who are huge fans of his. Many have studied with him, and many emulate the qualities of his paintings: the thick impasto, the mimicry, not so much of Rembrandt's technique, as of a romantic half-memory of Rembrandt's technique, the gauzy depiction of idealized faces, the hieratic figures, the threatening landscapes, the peculiar clouds, the funny hats. In fact, Nerdrum seems to be encouraging his students to paint ersatz Nerdrums: you can often recognize who has studied with him, as you can recognize the work of people who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright, because they all built ersatz Wrights.

Anyhow, Nedrum's comment finally clarified for me my problem with his work: flat moral affect. In depicting good and evil, he does not choose sides between them. He has a lurid fascination with brutality, but he does not define himself relative to it. Goya, whose work was more brutal, depicts horror, and is horrified. Nerdrum depicts horror, and is fascinated. In Nerdrum's universe, beauty is more important than virtue, and boredom is more repellent than evil.

My revulsion at this teaches me something about myself as an artist. It is often said that beauty and virtue are the same, or that the virtuous is beautiful. And this is often true. But when they diverge, I am obliged to choose virtue. I would rather be bored than wicked, and I would rather do right than be fascinating.

There is room in the world for wicked artists. Evil too must take an artistic form, from the perspective of evil, in order for us to complete our understanding of the dilemma of being human. Kundera has a wonderful quotation, which I am unable to find now, on the necessity of morally compromised writers, because otherwise history will be a tale told by choir-boys: a tale told from the perspective of moral innocence, which is to say, ignorance.

To be a successful evil artist, you must not only be good - you must be great. And you will still deserve the condemnation heaped upon you. But Odd Nerdrum is merely good.

Let's zoom back for a moment from the issue at hand, to the long-standing problem it exemplifies so well, to wit: what about this business of artists being assholes? What about that?

I have thought about that long and hard. After all, I'm an artist. Does this give me a right to treat people badly? Well, in my case, it would little serve my purposes as an artist, because the pictures I make come from love. So not being an asshole is very difficult for me as a practical career artist, but it is necessary in order to preserve the source of my inspiration. I am simply in love, in one way or another, with most of the people I know, and with my pictures, and with the people who sit for them. For me, a big part of love is a desire to know - not the good only, but the good and the bad, about that which is loved. And for people to be willing to show this to you, the good and the bad alike, again, the method of brutality is less effective than the method of adoration.

But leave aside the practical considerations. Many well-known artists and even great artists are notorious assholes. Caravaggio? Murderer - well, man-one, five to seven years, if this were Law and Order. Michelangelo? Grumpy as all hell, really stinky feet. Bernini? Had his girlfriend's face slashed. Picasso? Serial asshole to every woman he knew. The list goes on, and all the examples are more impressive than a shitty little Facebook post.

So what are we to make of the asshole problem, and of the link between artistry and assholery?

Here is my latest thinking on it. With regard to those who have already died, there is nothing we can do any longer. They lived; they died; they abused those around them and made what work they did. If the work is good - by all means, appreciate the work.

With regard to those who are living, absolutely - let them be assholes. But do not make a special exception for them because they are also artists. Treat them with the contempt you would treat any asshole. You don't get special dispensation to be an asshole because of what you can contribute to humanity. If it's really so important for you to be an asshole, for you to renounce your first citizenship, to the human race, then suffer the consequences. Nobody said it should be easy - it should be hard. There is no whining in art.

And if the work is good, then still appreciate the work, even the work by the living asshole. Just don't make it easy for the asshole to get away with being a jerk. Ostracize him. Humiliate him. Mock him. If he wants to make his own cost of producing art higher than it needs to be, make him pay every penny.

To go back from the general to the specific, I imagine some of my Nerdrum-following friends and acquaintances will, at some point, stumble on this post. Many of these friends are young; virtually all of them are extremely talented. This Nerdrumism of theirs appears to me to have the fanaticism of youth. It is in the nature of youth - I have suffered through this myself - to attach to heroes. Nerdrum has cultivated himself as a hero to many young artists. He has promulgated a system of virtues, many of which are legitimate virtues, and he has promulgated his own work as the ne plus ultra of quality and legitimacy. Part of becoming an adult is learning to recognize the faults of your heroes. It is learning to identify a set of principles which you can reliably advocate, and learning to separate those principles from men. It is a difficult and lonely process, setting your principles first and being skeptical even of them. Principles are fallible; our thinking is not perfect. But more fallible than principles are men, and sometimes even our heroes turn out to be cranky old Nazis.

UPDATE April 6, 2011

I notice this post is still getting a lot of traffic. I feel obliged to add that if anyone is thinking of using material from this post to prosecute Mr. Nerdrum under any ridiculous European hate speech laws, I will do everything I can to undermine the utility of my writing as evidence in the case.

50 comments:

  1. great post, man. enjoyed the "ersatz nerdrum" commentary.

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  2. Thanks Eikon! Very cool blog by the way - and I'm in a show at Manifest right now!

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  3. Lucky for all of us, you don't have to choose between doing right and being fascinating. Thanks for this blog.

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  4. Ed - thank you for your generous words; and I'm sorry I haven't replied to your previous comment yet - I completely forgot! I'll get to it (as soon as I remember).

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  5. Enjoyed your blog, very courageous, I think.

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  6. Ozziequine - Thank you! I don't know how courageous I would call it, but it's very nice of you to say. And Charlotte tells me who you are - hi! I hope all is well with you...

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  7. Beverly - Chris - thanks for saying so. Your opinions mean a lot to me.

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  8. Daniel,
    Good post. you make some interesting observations about Odd Nerdrum. Some I agree with some I do not. I use to love his work and it influenced me on some level. I grew out of it. I do think his work is based on nihilism, shock and fetish.

    I abhor Nerdrums' Hitler comment and I believe he could have made the same kind of observation about the contemporary art world without using the kind of language he did. I do not think he is evil. I think he is misguided and isolated by his success and where he lives. His comment was nasty, offensive, but evil, I'm not sure. Should he be condemned, absolutely. His defenders are worse however as they clamor to defend the indefensible.

    Many years ago I studied with the late Frank Mason
    of whom Nerdrum sort out in the 80's. He visited Frank and came to studio 7 at the ASL in New York. I was not in class at the time but I herd form students of Frank that he thought Nerdrum was a good painter who seems to have foregone God and beauty. Frank was pretty religious, not in an organized way but he had a lot faith. Frank believed in beauty and painting it. He spent his life studying Rubens, Rembrandt, Hals, Velasquez and his philosophy was that all of these great artist were connected by the search for beauty and transcending the suffering of the human condition. Rembrandt' work has what Nerdrum's does not, empathy.

    Thank you for posting this it needs to be discussed and the discourse is important.

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  9. Daniel,
    You were offended. I understand that.
    But this is nothing more than libel. And this is a sad and desperate attempt at promoting yourself with controversy.

    ODD NERDRUM HATES HITLER. NERDRUM HATES MODERN ART. NERDRUM SAYS HE IS NOT AN ARTISTS, HE CALLS HIMSELF A KITSCH-PAINTER. THEREFORE HE IS SAYING THAT AN ARTIST IS A FASCIST. HITLER HAD A GREATER IMPACT THAN PICASSO.

    NERDRUM SAYS THAT KITSCH IS ABOUT EMPATHY AND HUMANITY, AND ART IS THE OPPOSITE.

    You may disagree with his statements, but this is what he believes.

    Just because YOU say that he was praising Hitler and not being ironic doesn't make it so. You have nothing to support your statement except that you make that assumption because you were offended.

    Sadly these days if you want help, you have to yell "fire!". People are apathetic. If you want to point out something important you have to get their attention and making a calm argument about this won't get their attention.

    Is his statement reckless and insensitive? YES.
    Is he a Nazi? NO.

    Anyone who knows absolutely anything about Odd Nerdrum knows this.

    Why does he say that artists are fascist?

    Damien Hirst said that 9/11 was great Art!

    Guillermo Habacuc starved a dog in a gallery and called that Art!

    HITLER BELIEVED HE WAS AN ARTIST AND THAT WHAT HE WAS DOING WAS ART! He said this in "Mein Kampf". Should we think he's an artist just because he says he is? NO! But, the Modern Art world said that a urinal was Art, just because Duchamp said it was Art.

    What's the connection? All of these psychos believe the same GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. Yes, philosophy can actually effect us.

    The GERMAN PHILOSOPHER Hegel said that some people are chosen by God to be artists (uber-mensch). Whatever an artist does is Art.

    The GERMAN PHILOSOPHER Wittgenstein said that most people were slaves and that only a select few are their masters. He said that it has always been like this throughout history.

    Hitler read the German philosophers Kant, Hegel, Schopenhaur, and Wittgenstein. He used their ideas to argue that what he was doing was right and that it was Art.

    Damien Hirst believes and spreads these same ideas and used these philosophers to support his psychotic statement.

    Much of the modern Art world since Duchamp has followed the philosophy of these German philosophers.

    This is why ODD NERDRUM SAYS HE IS NOT AN ARTIST.

    And this is why HE SAYS THAT ARTISTS ARE FASCIST BECAUSE THEY FOLLOW FASCIST PHILOSOPHY.

    He said this many times, including in his book "On Kitsch". In this book HE SAYS THAT KITSCH IS THE OPPOSITE OF ART. He said that his work "Kitsch" is about EMPATHY and HUMANITY. That is the center of his philosophy!

    Nerdrum is saying that this German philosophy is evident throughout the Contemporary Art world. And he believes that it is so dangerous that if we don't pay attention these atrocities can happen again.

    All you need is one demented person who actually believes Damien Hirst or these philosophers.

    You may disagree with Nerdrum. You may think that it was inappropriate that he used such a terrible event for his metaphor. Perhaps it was.

    If you want to criticize him, criticize him on these grounds.

    But he is not a Nazi. And it is equally irresponsible, destructive, and reckless to say he is.

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  10. By the way Odd Nerdrum's father fought AGAINST the Nazis during WWII. Most of Norway supported the Germans during WWII and his fathers actions put their family in great danger. You can thank him for risking everything to help free your relatives.

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  11. Lots of language pertaining to mental illness throughout discussion - mad, madman, sane, psychos. Is it being said that mental illness and evil is intertwined? I am uncomfortable with this understanding of mental illness if this is intended. If it is not intended then great care should be taken with language that suggests people who are mentally unwell are evil.

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  12. Jeff - thanks for your comment. I do think that the lack of empathy is a strong element in my evolving understanding of my dislike for Nerdrum's work; it was the thing I could not quite identify when I was much more ambivalent about him than I am now.

    As for the question of whether he is evil, perhaps we agree on the data and the problem is a difference in our interpretation. For me, the collapsing of disparate quantities (dislike for modern art, dislike for Hitler) amounts to an indifference to evil so profound as to be evil in and of itself. But I will not dispute that it could be taken another way. I am possibly more puritanical than most.

    Richard - hello. May I understand your use of the all-caps as a form of shouting? Because if so, I would ask that you stop; if you think of this blog as a room, it is a room where conversations take place, not shouting matches.

    Now, most of your argument has to do with a continuing attempt to suggest that those opposing Nerdrum's vicious remark lack relevant information. I discussed, and dismissed, this angle of approach in the post above. Frankly, I think it is embarrassing that you are taking the approach of repeating, defending, and enlarging on your mentor's disgusting sentiments here, rather than, for instance, begging him to set aside his vanity and apologize vigorously and publicly for his behavior so far. I don't see why you're wasting your time defending this savage, whatever his parents did. You're a talented artist in your own right, and you do not need anyone's support.

    You have written a single remark which is not entirely off-base. It is this:

    "And this is a sad and desperate attempt at promoting yourself with controversy."

    Ordinarily, maybe ten or twelve people visit this blog on any given day. Yesterday, there were 109. It's true that I posted a link to the post on my Facebook wall; but I have been doing that with posts generally. I had no idea the post would generate the attention that it did, and I am a little upset - I believe that careful, sober, and hopefully interesting writing is the way I should be building a readership, not attention-getting stunts. I would never use Nerdrum's public meltdown as a means of self-advancement, and I would hate for it to appear that I had. With any sort of luck, the furor will die down, and I can go back to writing for the several readers I have earned, and who are good enough to check in now and again.

    Let's return to your comment for a moment though:

    "And this is a sad and desperate attempt at promoting yourself with controversy."

    Isn't this actually a better description of Nerdrum's reprehensible behavior?

    Incidentally, I've got a post about Duchamp's urinal a few entries down, which I think has one or two new things to say - you might enjoy it.

    Be well -

    Daniel

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  13. Anne - that's a good point. I do think there is an ambiguity with regard to good and evil with regard to what is generally understood as sociopathy or psychopathy, but overall, I'll try to be more careful about that, to the extent that I haven't been.

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  14. Daniel, Odd Nerdrum is not a Nazi; he is merely an asshole. I say this because he is an artist, or at least everyone besides him says he is, and all artists are assholes, even you. Some might say that I am a blonde math teacher, but I disagree. Everyone knows that blondes are dumb, mathematicians are heartless, and teachers are authoritarian. Being none of these things, I refuse to consider myself a blonde math teacher. But you know who was dumb, heartless, and authoritarian? Why, the evil stepmother in Snow White! Therefore, she was a blonde math teacher. An even greater one than my own Ms. Creswell, bless her.

    Sometimes I think we are all mad. Or maybe not me, but everyone else.

    Sadly, in the little brouhaha that you seem to have created (you asshole), what has been lost is the most important question, possibly the most important question of all for everyone: when we – be we artists, teachers, parents, journalists – have a hand in helping interpret, translate, clarify, or mold reality for other people, what is our responsibility in addressing good and evil? What is good? What is evil? How broad is the neutral ground? What questions! You may need to pose them again in a separate post after we have all forgotten about this one.

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  15. Any defense of Nerdum which states that Nerdrum is not a Nazi is completely beside the point. Daniel's point is that what Nerdrum said is evil, and his lack of apology or retraction makes him evil (at the very least sympathetic to evil). One does not have to be a Nazi to be evil, correct? One can stand aside and do nothing while Nazis slaughter Jews, correct? Nerdrum may or may not be a Nazi, and Daniel's position still stands.

    Daniel's point is that Nerdrum equates atrocious art and with atrocity. In so doing, Nerdrum implies that the revulsion one feels when viewing, say, Duchamp's urinal, is somehow in the same ballpark as the revulsion we should feel regarding the Holocaust. To have this position, one must become inured to all empathy for the human condition to begin with. One must be able to shrug off tragedy, be indifferent to the suffering of innocents. Daniel calls this state of mind 'evil'. And if this isn't evil, then someone please tell me what is.

    Let's take an example, we can all get our minds around. Darth Vader blew up a planet from the deck of the Death Star, yes? Was he in the least bit concerned about the billions of lives he just wasted? Naah. Did he at least hesitate or weigh arguments for an against such a heinous action. Nuh-uh. Did he sleep well that night? Probably.

    You see, this was Geroge Lucas' way of telling the audience early on in Star Wars that DV was evil. Now imagine there's a neutral visitor on the Death Star from some star system not under the Republic's control. Supposing he opines that this was the greatest work of art ever as he watches what's left of a planet float off into space. What is the difference between him and Darth Vader? If anything, Darth Vader comes across almost as appealing because to paraphrase Eric Roberts in Runaway Train, "at least he's up front with his bullshit."

    This neutral visitor, and Odd Nerdrum, are not up front with their bullshit. They take their indifference to human suffering and mask it with a flimsy veneer of intellectualism. To me this is just as evil as the evil itself, only lamer.

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  16. Great post. While I fall into the 'he's an asshole' school, but it is important to take a deeper look, which you have done so eloquently.

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  17. On "Daniel's affaire".

    I met Nerdrum' work only a few months ago. As I think for many people, I was immediately shocked by his technique, but mostly by the frequently dark, obscure, violent and misterious themes of many of his paintings. I wanted to go deeper and started reading about Kitsch. I can say I agree with most of the points of his critic to "Art" as a quite recent invention, that is a critic to all the (fascist) modern world and to the social hypocrisy of our times (i.e. the hypocrisy that prevents many from seeing that the overall madness of our ordinary lives on this planet, is a simple derivation of the same evil that inspired nazism: or do we forget that thousand of people pay EVERY DAY with their own lifes, the price of OUR welfare?).

    But still I was upset by something, and for now I can say I arrived at this point. Nerdrum's work is very important because it is completely open (everything can find a place in his canvases), for the sincerity and the deep investigation that are at its base. He is often not afraid to look at the bad, at the real pain, at the inconsistencies that every man has inside. By the magistral representation of this, I think he is the only living real painter (I actually know) who could have a positive impact for modern man. Now that religions and philosophy seem to have no more anything to teach us, I think a man has only one chance to free himself: to watch deeply inside himself and recognize by himself what is good and what is bad (or do we still need a god to tell us that killing or being contrary to life is a sad and horrible thing?).

    By watching at Nerdrum's paintings everyone can see something about himself, maybe something he never wanted to recognize. In sweetness as in mutilation, in simplicity as in dignity of all his figures. This fact can bring the spectator to a deep reflection about himself and about humankind in his universal meanings. By this Nerdrum carries out the task of the Painter: to show something which is unknown, to let the man win a better knowledge about himself.

    This is my humble opinion. Who doesn't see this, are often the same who think that evil is something that always concerns the others or that put a work in a competition for tawdry reasons. Maybe.

    M.T.

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  18. Synamore - your syllogism-fu is strong, and I will not dispute it! I hope I have never claimed not to be an asshole. If you think I've created a brouhaha, you should see what happened on Facebook (before Mr. Integrity deleted his own thread, anyway). This is really just an auxiliary brouhaha. Your question is important, and perhaps his public role, and his obvious interest in influencing young artists, is why I reacted so strongly to a statement that might have earned a simple, "You're an asshole," if it had come about in an evening of tipsy conversation among friends. Anyhow, I will consider your question, and if I feel like I have anything worthwhile to contribute to the topic, you can bet I'll write 2000 words about it.

    I respect your and Ima's opinions deeply, and I will reflect further on whether we are looking here at per-se evil or simple assholism. I incline toward per-se evil, under the terms Chris describes so vividly, but I cannot discount the possibility that I am wrong.

    Moving along to Chris, thank you for this hilarious and cogent addition to the debate! I think you state my issue with the comment clearly and in a form all can understand.

    Massimo, I simply don't come to the conclusion you do about the merit of Nerdrum's so-called exploration of human nature. I had this friend in high school, a black-trenchcoat kind of a teenager, who excitedly came up to me one time and said, "I wrote a short story where I managed to include murder, rape, torture, incest, and cannibalism. It's *awesome.*" I see Nerdrum's depiction of evil as being about on this level. It's *awesome* in the same completely meaningless way.

    For the rest of you, Massimo's last paragraph is talking about me. In yet another Facebook thread, I candidly admitted to tawdry reasons for previously entering some work in a Nerdrum-hosted competition. The reasons were the usual ones - wanting to fit in with my peer group, trying to find a reason to like Nerdrum because so many of friends I respect do, and wishing to come to the attention of successful people. Tawdry indeed, but not, I think, uncommon. Given that, let me assure you, Massimo, I am painfully aware of my capacity for evil.

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  19. Also, I need to watch Runaway Train, obviously.

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  20. Daniel, I think it's really strange the way you insist on your opinion after all the clarifications you obtained regarding Nerdrum's post given i.e. by R.T.Scott. I'm afraid I have to think with him, you are in bad faith and trying to obtain a sort of auto/promotion by this thread. I also deplore your impulsivity: it clearly seems you're not waiting anything else than having the opportunity to defame someone (of success).

    I'm also sorry because I think that your example about the young black/trenched man absolutely doesn't fit. I think as a painter you should know the talent, the study, the love, the strenght soemone need to reach the very high level of mastery that Nerdrum manifests.

    So Thank you for posting the images of Nerdrum's paintings: they give light to this page, and I think anyone can see it (maybe the penultimate is just a copy).

    I didn't watch "Runaway Train", but I would advise you to look "The Reader", by Stephen Daldry. It's very ineteresting and I think also educative: giving a special look at the final law process anyone could understand that the fact that some behaviors are "common", doesn't make them less tacky (or horrible).

    Saying this I salute you. In Italy we have a saying "there is so deaf as those who do not want to hear", but unfortunately I think the discussion on a blog may not be effective in this regard. But maybe I'm wrong.

    M.T.

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  21. Massimo -

    Hello again! I think you've made your point. Let me address it again, and then if you have anything new to say, I welcome your additional remarks.

    >Daniel, I think it's really strange the way you insist on your opinion after all the clarifications you obtained regarding Nerdrum's post given i.e. by R.T.Scott.

    Let me present to you again what Nerdrum said:

    "There is no doubt about it: In the previous century Hitler was the greatest Artist, greater even than Picasso."

    Nothing Nerdrum and his amanuensis have added has improved that statement beyond brute monstrosity for me. I will go farther right now, in case anyone is thinking of continuing to try to justify the comment. There is no justification. If you try to justify it to me, you're wasting your time. Call it my failing; but save your time.

    >I'm afraid I have to think with him, you are in bad faith and trying to obtain a sort of auto/promotion by this thread.

    I've got an idea. How about if you buy a painting of mine, and then come back and tell me that. Then I will say, "Massimo, my friend, you're right. I totally criticized Nerdrum's remark simply to boost my career." Until then, see my previous reply to Richard.

    >I'm also sorry because I think that your example about the young black/trenched man absolutely doesn't fit. I think as a painter you should know the talent, the study, the love, the strenght soemone need to reach the very high level of mastery that Nerdrum manifests.

    Look, I'm not trying to convince anybody that Picasso is great. I happen to think he is, but if you don't, that's your right. In your comment, you're attempting to conflate technique and art. I don't think Nerdrum is great, and all the masterful technique in the world won't make him great. It will just make him a masterful technician, which I do not dispute. If you want an objective external standard of excellence, try your hand at math. *There's* a subject with a right answer - and a delightful subject it is.

    >Saying this I salute you. In Italy we have a saying "there is so deaf as those who do not want to hear", but unfortunately I think the discussion on a blog may not be effective in this regard. But maybe I'm wrong.

    No, no, you're absolutely right. There is nothing you can say that will convince me that that comment was anything short of how I described it.

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  22. Daniel, it took more than Hitler to commit his crimes. "evil happens while good men do nothing" or a german proverb that "there is not anything so evil but to not do any good."

    I believe you have felt something disturbing and promulgated that. Scorning apathy or peer reaction, you are standing for all who are not here to do so, as we all should. Had Hitler been so fortunate as to use his power of persuasion for good, and had his brothers's conscience what could he have gifted us with ?

    Would I have stood by ? What would I have done ? The real question is now when we are confronted with evil or evil disguised - what do I do.

    Thank you Daniel - stand tall.

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  23. Thank you very much, Anonymous! I don't think we need to live all the time as if we were already picking sides in, say, France in 1941. But, like you, I think it's worth considering and preparing for making the kinds of fatal decisions that arise in situations like those. Compared with those sorts of situations, everything I have written here is nothing at all.

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  24. Daniel,
    First let me apologize to you about the caps. I absolutely never let myself get carried away in such a fashion. And if you would be kind enough, I would ask that you remove that comment.

    A little context about why I reacted that way: following Odd's statement, as you might have guessed, I had received a great number of e-mails from people. Some of them expressing support, some of them asking me to explain, and some simply calling him a Nazi. These few people repeated their statement whether or not I responded and harassed me about it. This was before even wrote the explanation, which tried to present, not as a defence, but simply as an explanation of what he intended to say. I did not make the statement. Odd did. And so, I understand why people might have written to me after I wrote the explanation, it was very aggrivating to receive rude and threatening e-mails from people, unlike you, who really didn't understand anything about this. Even more insulting, some ignorant neo-nazi sent me an e-mail voicing his support! This, above all infuriated me, as you might guess. This, coupled with the fact that an Art critic in Sweden called my work "Nazi-Art", before I even met Odd... simply because I am a representational painter, and solely based on Greenberg's theories, who said that all representational art was evil, and socially destructive. He called it "Kitsch" - sentimental or emotional Art as opposed to "Camp" - cheesy Art.

    So, when I saw your article here, and based on your response on his page which I had previously read:

    "I'm sorry, I find this unbelievably offensive, and I will be deleting you from my friend list now. This kind of pathetic wit is harmless enough until you start treading on the dead bodies of my relatives. You can go to fucking hell."

    And also based on the opening statements of your article, I assumed that you were also blindly calling him a Nazi - instead of just calling him evil. And from meeting you before, I thought you were a rather kind and thoughtful person. I also assumed that like myself, you were reacting based on your immediate emotion and not a thoughtful response. So, when I wrote in all caps, I wasn't exactly intending to yell, I was intending to make the most important statements very clear so that the people who refused to read my response with any degree of patience would at least understand the basic assertions from the beginning.
    continued.....

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  25. Evil lies both in one's intention and one's actions. Words are not actions, so logically you must consider the intention of the words. Thus, you cannot rationally consider a statement to reveal someone is "evil" without considering the intention for making the statement. For this reason you cannot rationally reject an explanation of his intention as being beside the point. It may not be the whole point, but it is indeed relevant to choosing whether or not to call someone "evil". This is not a logical trick. The logic stands by itself. Simply think about it for a while.

    I think you are mistaken about asserting that Odd has not defined himself in terms of morality. He has repeatedly emphasize humanism and empathy in his writings and tries (in his Scandanavian way - think of Ingmar Bergman) to represent empathy and dignity for man, even when they are surrounded by an apocalyptic world. This is obvious in how carefully he applies his technique to paint the body. Humanity is the most important subject in all of his paintings, in direct contrast with much of the Contemporary Art world. The words "humanism" and "empathy" inherently reject "evil". These ideas are mutually exclusive. So, with the reasoning you used to say Odd was evil, you seem to be agreeing with him that Contemporary Artists are evil. You agree with the idea that this mentality of moral relativity is dangerous, while saying that Odd should not use it to point this danger out. Odd's statement was not just about philosophy, it's about exactly what you mentioned: the moral relativity and the shock tactics of the Contemporary Artist. You can say that Odd was incredibly insensitive, deeply mistaken, or even had some kind of mental problem. (Actually, he does have Turrets Syndrome... though that doesn't excuse a written comment.) But you cannot rationally say, based on this statement alone that he is either a Nazi or is evil. I understand that you will disagree about his tactics, but I think you know as well as I do that he is trying to use the shock value of the Art world in order to point out the danger of this mentality, and indirectly to actually advance the ideas of humanism, empathy, the acceptance of representational work and yes, we cannot deny, to advance his own career. But it's incorrect to say this is his only goal. My first question is: how do you caution people against a tragedy without mentioning it? My second question: how do you reach the people who have this mindset and try to change their minds and actions?
    cont.....

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  26. They will never read a calm and respectful essay, they will never acknowledge something that doesn't grab their attention in the first place. They don't take an artistic statement seriously if it's not ironic.
    So, Odd attempted to speak to them in their own language. Will it help or harm? Could he have done it another way that didn't reference Hitler? I don't know. That's just the tactic he chose. You obviously think that this tactic doesn't help battle moral relativism and you seem to say that even if it did, the means doesn't justify the end. There is certainly room for debate about that and the answer is not obvious. But calling Odd a Nazi or evil is illogical, and slander, and knowing that you typically would be more thoughtful about such things, I can only logically conclude that you have written this for self promotion.

    Though, with all due respect, it's insulting to my intelligence (and other readers') for you to suggest that you didn't know this article would generate a lot of hits. Seriously?

    I don't blame you for trying to promote yourself. But why use the same tactics of shock, insult, and twisting the facts for self promotion if you reject those tactics? You could have generated just as many hits by writing a more balanced article without making unsupportable claims about the character of someone you've never met based on your outrage. I understand and share your outrage at this mentality of moral relativism and shock Art, but you're directing it at the wrong person and you're undermining the advancement of figurative Art and humanism by calling him evil. I'm not saying you should just be silent. Certainly, criticize him if you disagree with him! But calling him evil is equally irresponsible.

    Why not write an article asking Damien Hirst to apologize? He repeated Stockhausen's statement about 9/11, and he actually believed it! That would also generate a lot of hits, and they would be more honestly gained.

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  27. Daniel I have to agree with Richard here. Odd is not evil nor is he endorsing evil.

    I'm not supporting Odd Nerdrum's comment, which I still think was a bad idea and now in retrospect and to many hours of trying to understand what it was all about I have come to the conclusion that the vagueness of it's intention lead people down paths that were based on our own concepts of what we thought on this subject. Maybe that was the intent. However it did not seem to work. At least to me it was dismal failure.

    That said I think the explanation Richard is giving here about Odd wanting to speak in the language of the modernist and post modernist makes sense. When I was in grad school I heard a professor call one very fine realist painter, who happened to be Jewish, "a card carrying fascist". This was how this artist was talked about. I was pretty offended as happened to know that he was not. Anyway this kind of language is used more than people know in academia in context to realism.

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  28. Richard -

    First of all, you should know that readership volume has gone back down to its ordinary level, and this is the last comment of yours I intend to answer. So if you'd like to continue commenting, feel free, but keep in mind that it's a short soapbox.

    Well, I suppose I should go through your comment in detail:

    >First let me apologize to you about the caps.

    Thanks!

    >Even more insulting, some ignorant neo-nazi sent me an e-mail voicing his support! This, above all infuriated me, as you might guess.

    To receive support from the neo-Nazis does not make one a neo-Nazi, but it should definitely give one pause.

    >And from meeting you before, I thought you were a rather kind and thoughtful person.

    Thanks! I like to think so.

    >I also assumed that like myself, you were reacting based on your immediate emotion and not a thoughtful response.

    Oh, I was furious. That doesn't mean I wasn't thoughtful.

    >So, when I wrote in all caps, I wasn't exactly intending to yell, I was intending to make the most important statements very clear so that the people who refused to read my response with any degree of patience would at least understand the basic assertions from the beginning.

    Hmm. So what you're saying is you weren't shouting so much as assuming that readers of this blog were not very good readers? I'm not sure how effective that is as an apology, but I suppose I'll have to take what I can get.

    Now we get to the heart of your comment, which begins as follows:

    >Evil lies both in one's intention and one's actions. Words are not actions, so logically you must consider the intention of the words.

    It appears as if you are starting with the tack that there was something apropos that I didn't understand about Nerdrum's comment. I'm going to guess that since your last effort on this front didn't yield results, you've dropped the Kant and Hegel angle, and would like to change the topic to the aspects discussed here?

    I don't know how much more clearly I can say this. I've said it already. I categorically reject every effort to defend the comment. Your task is sort of like trying to argue that 2 + 2 = 5. You can certainly come up with interesting arguments from a number of approaches, some of them very convincing. The only thing you can't do is make it an arguable point.

    Just so that's clear.

    Now, I'd like to address one or two of your many points, simply because they raise interesting topics.

    >Evil lies both in one's intention and one's actions. Words are not actions, so logically you must consider the intention of the words.

    In systems that tend to emphasize the terms of argumentation you use, actions tend to get classified as the outcomes of human volition. In this sense, words are, of course, actions. People are given broad freedom with their words in civilized societies because, although they are actions, they do not have the power to compel. Except under special circumstances, they can only persuade. Moreover, you give the lie to the not-actions argument with your request here:

    >And if you would be kind enough, I would ask that you remove that comment.

    If words are not actions, they don't have consequences. If they don't have consequences, why would you care where yours remained?

    That's as much as I have to say here about the ontology of evil. I don't find the prospect of a foray into the authorial-intent branch of literary theory exciting, so I'm not going to address the rest of the point.

    >He has repeatedly emphasize humanism and empathy in his writings

    I didn't take you for the kind of a guy who thinks it's acceptable to claim that you can't understand a painting without reading what somebody wrote about it.

    continued...

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  29. >and tries (in his Scandanavian way - think of Ingmar Bergman) to represent empathy and dignity for man, even when they are surrounded by an apocalyptic world.

    I simply disagree, and I am also forced to conclude that you haven't watched very much Bergman.

    >This is obvious in how carefully he applies his technique to paint the body.

    I know this is a big idea for you, but it's not as pivotal for me, and doesn't convince me. If you think of technique as language, it is best to have at one's disposal a language of many and fine words, but it is better still to have something to say. There is no functional language which makes it impossible to say things that are ugly and false; the mightiest technique is the merest servant of a vision. Nerdrum's vision, to me, is scabrously misanthropic. I would prefer a painter with fewer skills and more adoration and insight.

    >The words "humanism" and "empathy" inherently reject "evil".

    Perhaps they do, although I think the formulation is simplistic. At any rate, I have told you my estimation of the value of waving some words around, namely, nil.

    >So, with the reasoning you used to say Odd was evil, you seem to be agreeing with him that Contemporary Artists are evil.

    Sure! I probably agree with him about a lot of things.

    >Odd's statement was not just about philosophy, it's about exactly what you mentioned: the moral relativity and the shock tactics of the Contemporary Artist.

    To me, this is vaguely akin to saying that the Mel Gibson tape is actually a commentary on the scourge of racism.

    >But you cannot rationally say, based on this statement alone that he is either a Nazi or is evil.

    You know what? I think that you still haven't read my post carefully. What I said was that to be able to think of the statement, and then to voice the statement, is a symptom of a kind of ethical collapse so severe as to amount to evil.

    continued...

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  30. >My first question is: how do you caution people against a tragedy without mentioning it? My second question: how do you reach the people who have this mindset and try to change their minds and actions? They will never read a calm and respectful essay, they will never acknowledge something that doesn't grab their attention in the first place. They don't take an artistic statement seriously if it's not ironic.
    So, Odd attempted to speak to them in their own language.

    Nerdrum wasn't exactly opening for Christina Aguilera at the Verizon-Dome. He was addressing his 5,000 or so Facebook friends. Presumably, most of these are people who chose to friend him, and presumably they did so because they like his work. Now what kind of contempt for his own fans does it take for you, or him, to assume that these people haven't got the wits or will to read a serious analysis? You already suggested that readers of this blog suffer from the same inability to get through a reasonable argument. I like to think that I have to be at my sharpest to appeal to my readers, and if this restricts my number of readers, that's a restriction I can live with. If Nerdrum, and you, think that your interests and readers are best served by dumbing down statements, you can go right ahead. It's no kind of relationship I would court, and to my ear, it sounds predicated on the kind of abstracted idea of "the people" which characterizes the Robespierre stripe of humanist and empath.

    You also wrote this:

    >So, when I saw your article here, and based on your response on his page which I had previously read... And also based on the opening statements of your article, I assumed that you were also blindly calling him a Nazi - instead of just calling him evil.

    As far as I can tell, you're the only one in the room who has trouble reading an essay from start to finish.

    >But calling Odd a Nazi or evil is illogical, and slander, and knowing that you typically would be more thoughtful about such things, I can only logically conclude that you have written this for self promotion.

    Let me tidy this up a little bit for you. What I think you're saying is: "Since I've demonstrated my point to you to my own satisfaction, and you've rejected it, I am forced to conclude you have corrupt motives."

    What do you think this is, "Night of January 16th"? You can deduce whatever you like, Richard, but that doesn't force reality to correspond to it. Assuming that anyone who disagrees with you must be corrupt is, in real life, a statistically unsound proposition.

    >Though, with all due respect, it's insulting to my intelligence (and other readers')

    Due respect noted. How about if you speak for yourself - and, of course, Odd Nerdrum - and let other readers decide whether I'm insulting their intelligence?

    >for you to suggest that you didn't know this article would generate a lot of hits. Seriously?

    Seriously - I'm accustomed to my average 22 hits a day (I had the number wrong before). When that's where you're at, you don't know if any particular thing is going to cause a sudden spike. It took me by surprise, but let's face it, even a hundred readers a day is a fart in the wind. Let's say 500 people, total, have read the post. So? One of my blogger friends gets 800 hits a day. Most of the blogs I read are in the hundreds of thousands. If this was a publicity stunt, it wasn't a very effective one, was it?

    continued...

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  31. >I don't blame you for trying to promote yourself. But why use the same tactics of shock, insult, and twisting the facts for self promotion if you reject those tactics?

    I've already admitted to the entire extent of self-promotional motives involved in this post, in a previous comment. But let's say, for a moment, that you're right. I'm doing this to promote myself. Specifically, what I'm doing is pissing off a lot of people I know and like, probably alienating half the figurative galleries in Norway and a couple in New York, and insulting a painter just powerful enough to make life difficult for me, if he really wanted to, but not so powerful that anyone outside of his comparatively small group of fans, collectors, and followers actually respects him or particularly knows who he is. You wrote before that I struck you as intelligent - does this strike you as the kind of idiotic move I would make for mercenary reasons?

    I try to save my idiotic moves for things I believe in. :)

    >Why not write an article asking Damien Hirst to apologize? He repeated Stockhausen's statement about 9/11, and he actually believed it! That would also generate a lot of hits,

    Just so.

    But he didn't say it to me, in however tenuous a way "to" is meant in this situation. I didn't have some interesting thoughts to write up based on his comment. Only Nerdrum's.

    Incidentally, how is it that Nerdrum gets to make the comments, and you get to waste your time defending them? Is his time worth more than yours?

    That about brings us to the end of your comment. Look - you're trolling my blog for no sensible reason I can discover (if you genuinely believed I were out to promote myself, why would you risk diverting attention my way?). I've given you a really hard time here, and I hope I've made you look like a monkey. All that aside, Richard, I want to like you. I think you've got a lot of integrity and a lot of promise as a painter. I also think you're trying to lift a weight that cannot be lifted. I think you've devoted yourself to a man who has forgiven himself for entirely too much. Perhaps he started with a real grievance, and perhaps it was a legitimate grievance. But in pursuit of his single goal, he has allowed himself to become complacent and wicked - just as complacent and wicked as his enemies, who are no doubt laughing at him, and justifiably so. I think you're an adult, and you've got as much skill now as you need, and I think you can do better. Your allegiance should be to nobody, your work should be your own, and you should speak for yourself and nobody else.

    I am in no way mocking you, slighting you, or being ironic with this bit. I sincerely hope you will distinguish your strengths from your weaknesses, and continue to show integrity even when the only thing you can be loyal to is doubt. I will not be here to answer your certainties, which I think are ridiculous certainties, but I will always be ready to talk to your doubts, your fears, and your hopes. I hope you'll remember that on my end, when it is the right time, there will be no bad blood between us and you can rely on me to be honest and offer what help I can.

    Jeff - I will duly enter your vote in the register. Thanks for clarifying that. As for the rest of your comment, it's really more of an indictment of academe than an exoneration of Nerdrum, don't you think?

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  32. Daniel, this is an excellent piece of writing and I pretty much agree with all of it, except I actually think you give Nerdrum more credit than he deserves. Pompous vapid nihilism for people who mistake the combination of darkness plus surface sheen for depth.

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  33. Fred! I'm honored that you dropped by, and thank you for your kind words. If there must be sides, I'm glad to share one with you. Also, I think this is very well put: "mistake the combination of darkness plus surface sheen for depth." Marvelously clear, and precisely so.

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  34. "Pompous vapid nihilism for people who mistake the combination of darkness plus surface sheen for depth."

    Oh I like this Fred fellow a lot.

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  35. He's a really nice guy, apart from being sharp. Ed, meet Fred. Fred, meet Ed.

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  36. "Pompous vapid nihilism for people who mistake the combination of darkness plus surface sheen for depth."

    Now,this kind of commentary makes me think that it comes from the frustration of how thing are not working out with one's career as and "artist."

    Now to the topic.

    Daniel, I found your post quite interesting and enjoyed reading your view. Although I don't agree with many things that you wrote, could you explain to me how is the statement Odd made, offensive?

    I apologize if I made any grammatical errors, I am still learning English.

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  37. >Now,this kind of commentary makes me think that it comes from the frustration of how thing are not working out with one's career as and "artist."

    I wouldn't presume, if I were you.

    >could you explain to me how is the statement Odd made, offensive?

    Oh dear. I expended a good deal of energy, in the main post and in the interminable comments, explaining precisely this. My writing must not be as good as I thought.

    >I apologize if I made any grammatical errors, I am still learning English.

    Your English is quite good - what's your primary language?

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  38. Great post, Daniel, thanks for your clarity of vision in a sea of baffling praise for Odd Nerdrum. Odd he is, and his work exploits human beings. His pictures lack empathy but not simply in a manner often employed by some artists who, for example, might see the opposite sex as objects, or people of another class as subhuman, or people of another race as less than their own, but rather Nerdrum appears to have no empathy for any human being-- and to a frightening level. One critic wrote that he includes spitting, shitting, erections, disemboweling, etc. but carefully avoids sexual intercourse--ostensibly because he worries his work will be reduced to pornography. Well, the work is already pornographic in the same manner James Joyce defined pornography, as "kinetic". Nerdrum's work is kinetic in that it moves the viewer to a state of horror, or shock, or repulsion (Joyce also applies the movement the other way, to desire, and also didactic works). Great art, on the contrary, is static. Upon viewing a great work of art a feeling person is left in a state of aesthetic arrest. No, I fear Odd Nerdrum avoids sexual contact not because he sees it as "pornographic" but more likely because it reminds him of a human connectedness.

    Furthermore, his technique is ridiculously overrated. Take a look at an original Rembrandt. Unlike Nerdrum, who continually scrapes off his underpainting and smudges much of what's left with his fingers, Rembrandt let his brushwork show. Consequently, his paintings appear much deeper and more luminous than Nerdrum's.

    He likes being provocative, which is why he made the insensitive statement about Hitler. What if Nerdrum simply cannot "feel" and we're all wasting our time talking about his "art"?

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  39. Anonymous - I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply, but I appreciate the thoughtful analysis. You sound like somebody who has either studied with him or studied his work closely - how did your life throw you in the way of his work?

    I hadn't heard the categorization of work as kinetic or static before. This is a fascinating idea and I'll be considering it further. I agree with you that there is something frightfully detached and hostile to Nerdrum's work. I'm no fan of Freud's, but when I put him beside Nerdrum, for all their shared misanthropy, there is a solidity, an ethical presence, which is present in Freud and absent in the hollow Odd. The soul as a subject resists aestheticism.

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  40. Thank you for an interesting post and comments. I was wondering weather it is right to let a persons ideas or bad deeds stop us from appreciating their work. Let´s say Caravaggio was a murderer and Michael Jackson was a paedofile, does it make their work any better or worse?

    Nerdrum denies to call him self an artist because many people call things he dislikes great art and some people called his style kitsch back in the 70s. Norwegians have a reputation of being narrow minded and see things in black and white and when he was young everyone there consideerd him old fashion. The terrible mass murderer in Oslo stated that pluralism was evil and multiculturalism was bad. When Nerdrum became offended he tried to create his own world and tried to hype the mock-word of kitsch to be the new thing. Looks like the revenge of the nerd has turned in to a succsess. But is he any better him self in his one way- attitude?
    Saying that what Hitler did was as bad as the so called modern artists, just on a much larger scale is a rather bad joke. Let´s hope he has learned his lesson: to stick to his day job and stop spending time on the internet. You cannot be good in every field.

    P.S I really love your blog. You are so reflecting when it comes to your art and life. I´s a great treasure and challenging source of inspiration. Sorry for my bad english.

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    Replies
    1. Hi there, quite strangely enough i happened across an article about Nerdrum's tax evasion (or some such "crime"). The context & underlying severance of the article lead me to search for images of his work, as i had never heard of him. I clicked on an image "dying couple" and it lead me to this now well aged discussion. I did not finish reading all the comments (I stopped when there was a bit too much stone-throwing to hold my attention), but in amongst all the honorary comments one usually finds on such public figures, I enjoy - thoroughly - hearing a different perspective. And so I read on. As I read on however, I was bemused my many of your comments, and then as others reacted to your post I was further… impressed by the curious nature of your character. By that I mean you made an impression on me that now compels me to write this comment, and although I am not one to usually leave a post, I feel a need to express my impressions of you, Daniel.. Since this is your blog.

      So I looked at your work. It is fine, I guess. Precise, neat, clean. As stated in you The Nerdrum Affair, you professed to confronting your subjects character through a method of gentleness, by seeking to portray what you call beauty - minor details, the curl of a muscle under soft light, silent or staring - to communicate their essence, their being. My rationality as to why I am even typing this to you when there are many more interesting pursuits I could be partaking in, is that perhaps the most meaningful contribution someone can make is an honest cart-blanche opinion of someone else, like a camera snap: what the conscious mind illuminates, and what it leaves out… And just as I may be leaving out 'deeper' details of your work, the impression I have (of your work) that i wish to mirror back at you is one that is simplified, idealized, always pretty. It seems as though your work is the one side of a coin that you will not flip.

      It is a personal taste, I know. But beautiful? I think not. This is not an attack, I understand preferential subjectivity and so who cares what I think (I'm sure there are many who admire your portrayal of humanity). But your work does not hold me in the magical sense that I believe an "artist"/"Kitschist" should. It seems immature. Safe. House proud. Your strong gut dislike for Nerdrum would make sense in this light. From what I see he does not seem to bother with the cute flattering neatness of normalized identity. That's okay though, each to their own, and I'm sure you will make a nice living for yourself.

      But to have called a witch-hunt (or in this case a Hitler-hunt) for another because his work points to and portrays all those fetishist violent dead/dying representations of seemingly nihilistic forms of flesh you cannot bare to look at within yourself does not make him evil. Your argument is not about Hitler, do not try fool yourself.

      It is clear even to me, after contextual provided by RichardTScott, that Nerdrum did NOT say what you think he did (When I use Caps-lock it denotes imperative detail by the way, not screaming). And to that you did not even offer a mild sign of admitting that perhaps you had a limited understanding of Nerdrum's statement. So what of this pride of yours? You grasp onto your thinly discussed discomfort for confronting all shadow aspects of this world by a weak thread of accusation - via a Facebook statement - that links Nerdrum to the truly mad and murderous beast who was Hitler.

      Delete
  41. (Wow I didn't realise I had this much to say... Nevertheless)

    In fact, to build an argument against another based on the idea of morality - using words like "evil" & "good" and terms like "moral topography problem" - without ever truly analyzing or elucidating your own understanding of morality (as if your existence casts no shadow on this world) - is a trifle silly, wouldn't you say? (Rhetoric). Especially as your work seems to illuminate the character of an artist with complete amnesia for anything beyond what you cultural ideals will acknowledge as real. To live is to kill another. This existence is not made of tissues and sanitizers. And the dead and dissected and soulless work of much current art does nothing for this pitiful delusion of safety: both mentally and physically in this world.

    In fact, I've heard many argue that what is "insane" and "mad" is our understanding of who we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to be through the lens of western ideology. But since that type of senselessness is invisible through normalisation to you, I suppose you don't go de-friending people on Facebook? Why are you so blind to the brutality of the human world? A positive move forward (that is, not merely a flirtation with an aesthetic that ignites in someone the desire to hang a print of yours up in their bathroom because it matches the tiles), if that is your aim, is to confront and not to deny that which you find ugly or scary. Having said that, the effect of beauty and harmony on the human mind definitely (ok, arguably) heals. The Greeks loved and did what they did for good reason, don't get me wrong. On the one hand I can say that I find Nerdrum's work to be morbid and lost. On the other hand, most modern and postmodern work is completely meaningless & soulless to me. So I understand Nerdrum's opposition to being associated to the idea of art (as if there is only one kind).

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  42. ...I understand that yes, you were furious with his Facebook post: how dare he associate Hitler's actions with that of an artist! Something you see yourself as! Gosh! But lets be honest, it is easy to point fingers at a known commonly-accepted "evil" (Hitler/Nazi sympathizers), even rewarding (in an empty thrill-less way) to do so in a world so full of wrong action, hurt and suffering. But pointing fingers is really quite silly, you're not actually doing anything positive. Don't you see your senselessness? Essentially, if all this was actually about the Hitler comment then you were a bit of a fool to get your feathers so ruffled up. It was ego, no?

    The subject of association, however, fascinates me. Why are people drawn to and then seek to imitate & replicate something. Like your "artist" friends appreciation for Nerdrum, or your desire to paint your models as you do. What is the willingness of "artists" to find landmarks of style/technique/feeling of established artists and their work, and then usually (and probably quite unconsciously) circle around these anchors as if a deep invisible association has unbeknown to themselves captured their attention? As if under a spell, hypnotized, but never self aware of the hook in their mind. Could it not be that perhaps people's fascination with Nerdrum's work is precisely because of this unconscious association? Because in those naked, eyeless and forsaken figures they see themselves and all of humanity through the wordless thoughts of their deepest memories flung together in forgotten but felt narratives of dreams and hidden fears. You might even call this unconscious association a fascination. A fascination that resonates and hints at clues that perhaps the identities trotting through our well-lit busy-days of our purposeful-lives are not the well-groomed masks we hold up to the mirrors in our sanitized bathrooms in the apartments of the suburbs of our minds.

    No, it isn't beautiful. But neither are the moderate forms of a table-wiped world of the socially acceptable and eager to sell.

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  43. moral flattening? He can't/won't pick a team (good vs. evil)? Who are you to judge? Reducing art - any art - to the naive camps of good and evil is just farcical!

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  44. Average Nobody artist is jealous of famous artist, finds flaw and opportunity to rant. Nobody artist inadvertently reveals career struggle and desire for recognition that famous artist has.
    Best part is everyone here thinking,discussing,writing about Nerdrum...this post wouldn't exist but for Nerdrum...so he wins, Nobody artist loses.
    Oh wait, I just read a post about Nobody artist on Nerdrum's facebook page...not

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    1. Actually, I lean toward thinking you did. So why don't you head back over there and remind Nerdrum and his little cult that when he was facing trumped-up tax charges, I forwarded his case to every contact I had in the human rights community.

      As for you, you semi-literate little prick, you have no idea what I want, but Nerdrum's stripe of "fame" ain't it. You're getting riled up over a post that's more than two years old. How about next time you want to come over here and share your devastating insights, you use your own name like somebody with the courage of their convictions?

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