Odd Nerdrum

Well I wish I could read from Odd Nerdrum's controversial book "On Kitsch" but apparently it is an academic book because it sells for nearly $100 dollars everywhere. So unless I take a class on Kitsch vs Fine Art I suppose I will never be reading it.  Seriously 100 dollars for a paperback!  But I'm kinda fascinated with the idea of the modern art movement being denounced by artists like Odd who are calling for a return to valuing skill, craftsmanship, and art that's value is based in visual ascetics and less in theory.  I don't have opinions yet about Odd being right, or the avant garde art world being right, but all I can say is that nothing can last forever. The modern art movement included.  I'm not saying now is the end, because clearly it's not. We still have many more years of calling trash arranged in patterns and piles, or decaying animals, or glasses half full of water, Fine Art, but all I'm saying is in all probability, eventually that will go out of vogue.

So are we on the cusp of a new art movement? Perhaps.  I guess the real indicator is "have the limits of modern art been pushed to their maximum? Once you put a dead shark preserved in formaldehyde in a glass case and call it art, or put honey out on step stools to attract flies only to kill them, or record the sounds of masturbation, maybe that is the limit.  Maybe there will be a huge recoil back from this movement that has named nearly everything and anything art.  I want to be clear that I personally don't have a problem with the avant gaurde art world, on the contrary, I find it fascinating, liberating, and entertaining.

Anyway, Odd Nerdrum.

 

Early Morning, oil on canvas, 206cm x 175.5cm,

Three Men at Dawn, by Odd Nerdrum (1996)
Oil on Canvas - 61" x 73.2"

The Hunt, 2011 Oil on canvas

The Hunt is one of Odd's less disturbing image's it appears to be a self portrait.  An old, wispy haired, chubby, man (just got to be Nerdrum himself) stands poised with a bow and arrow drawn.  The central figure tips the boat dangerously forward.  A strange light seems to glow from the boat or the water beneath the hunters feet.  The boat floats in the center of the picture plane in the middle of a placid and glassy body of water.  The entire painting has a soft light, pastel colors, and a blurry softness.  The landscape created by Odd is haunting, post apocalyptic, empty space.  It find it both beautiful and terrifying.  Like most of Odd's paintings it is hard to put your finger on a concrete narrative though there is most definitely a specific meaning to putting yourself dressed in white robes, hunting with a long bow, in the middle of a lake.