In Nerdrum’s view, the objects defined as “kitsch” is a consequence of modernism’s “make it new” ethic. For Nerdrum, this insistence on novelty has permeated the thinking of institutions, critics, artists and the public, and has effectively suppressed what Nerdrum most values: sentimentality, passion, pathos and the self-evident skill and emotion of sheer craft. As Nerdrum puts it, “the kitsch painter commits himself to the eternal: love, death and the sunrise.”
I am a filmmaker, composer. Son of Odd Nerdrum, the great painter. I produce the monthly talkshow The Cave of Apelles and I host the annual World Wide Kitsch painting competition.
How can I consider myself an artist if I don’t know what that is? Every time I hear this word my stomach unfailingly turns. Nobody knows what it is because
I started drawing when I was a little girl. I had a lot of interest in studying faces and portraying them. Especially older people, perhaps because their faces showed that
I don’t call my work art. The reason is simple: all fields that the ideas of Art have touched, have crumbled to dust. From modern architecture, modern concert music, to
I started studying on my own, attending workshops, and copying photographs in a painter’s studio. I knew that to progress from there I needed a mentor. That is how I
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No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.
