Odd Nerdrum

Among of the books I bought in Malmö last month was a monograph on the Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum. I had seen a number of this artist’s works on-line, and was keen to find out more.

Nerdrum is renowned for his emulation of old-master techniques and textures: there are in his paintings many echoes of Rembrandt and Caravaggio, in particular. Beyond that, his devotion to the depiction of flesh brings the work of Lucian Freud to mind; whereas certain of his pictures have, to my eye, unexpected likenesses to canvases by Dalí, or Ferdinand Hodler.

A great many of Nerdrum’s paintings of the ’80s and ’90s share a common setting: a bleak, post-apocalyptic locale where crudely-clothed or naked figures adopt contorted poses, or perform acts of violence, or enact bizarre rituals: like hallucinated variations on themes suggested by the Mad Max movies.

Nerdrum’s staunch use of traditional techniques, and of figurative subjects, has drawn its share of criticism and derision. Part of his response has been to claim that he is not an artist, but rather a ‘kitsch painter’, further claiming that ‘the kitsch painter is committed to the eternal: love, death and the sunrise’ and ‘because modernism has conquered art, kitsch is the saviour of talent and devotion.’

Kitsch is the opposite of the public space, of the public conversation, of the demand for objectivity and functionality. Kitsch is the intimate space, our selves, our love and our congeniality, our yearnings and our hopes, and our tears, joys and passion. Kitsch comes from the creative person’s private space, and speaks to other private spaces. Kitsch deals therefore with giving intimacy dignity - Odd Nerdrum, ArtNews, April 2000.

Are you a real kitsch-person? Try the questionnaire: page 1; page 2.

Click on the details above to see the full pictures from which they were excerpted - note that the full images are quite large (150 Kb or more): these I scanned from my copy of Odd Nerdrum - Malarier by Jan-Erik Ebbestad, Aschehoug, Oslo, 1995. As Nerdrum’s œuvre from 1979 onwards is well-documented at Trond Hjorteland’s site (see the first of the above links), I have chosen some of the artist’s earlier pictures to display here. These are Copyright © Odd Nerdrum 1972-1978.

Posted by misteraitch at December 29, 2003 12:55 PM | TrackBack