concludes that Nerdrum “is completely independent, both financially and symboli-
cally” (36).
- For a perceptive discussion of modernism and patronage, particularly with
regard to literature, see Lawrence Rainey, Institutions of Modernism: Literary Elites and
Public Culture, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, especially Chapters 4 and 5. In
general, this book provides an insightful analysis of the economic basis of modernism.
For another helpful discussion of this subject, including the role of patronage in mod-
ernism, see Paul Delany, Literature, Money, and the Market: From Trollope to Amis,
Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002, Chapter 9, “Paying for Modernism” and especially
Chapter 10, “T.S. Eliot’s Personal Finances, 1915–1929.” - See Cowen, Commercial Culture, 119–121 and Michael C. Fitzgerald, Making
Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art, New
York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1995. - Here is a representative statistic from art historian Suzi Gablik: “Recent esti-
mates given for the number of artists in New York begin with 30,000 and go as high as
90,000. The Soho dealer Ivan Karp has commented that he sees up to one hundred artists
each week, some ninety percent of whom he considers totally professional, all looking
for galleries in which to sell their work.” Gablik concludes: “It is easy enough to attack
the restless vanity of capitalist culture under the umbrella of radical Marxist aesthetics,
but the fact remains that the great art of recent centuries has emerged largely under cap-
italism, and not under socialism.” See Suzi Gablik, Has Modernism Failed?, London:
Thames and Hudson, 1984, 57, 31. - Nerdrum’s view of Kant is controversial, but not idiosyncratic. For a detailed
treatment of the role of Kant in the development of modernist aesthetics and the idea of
the autonomy of art, see Martha Woodmansee, The Author, Art, and the Market:
Rereading the History of Aesthetics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. This
entirely sober and scholarly analysis ends up making claims very similar to Nerdrum’s
highly polemical and provocative pronouncements about Kant. The fact that this book is
listed in Dag Solhjel’s bibliography in On Kitschmay mean that Nerdrum himself is
familiar with it. - I am also aware of the apparent contradiction in my finding a message in
Nerdrum’s paintings—and to some extent a specifically political one—after outlining
his critique of the modern practice of judging paintings by their political message. But I
am not claiming that Nerdrum’s paintings should be judged as paintings on the basis of
any political message they may convey. As I am sure Nerdrum himself would insist, I
believe that his paintings must be judged on artistic grounds and largely in terms of their
painterly technique. But that does not mean that Nerdrum may not also have something
to “say” in his paintings. My discussion of what I take to be the meaning of Nerdrum’s
paintings is an exercise in art interpretation, and not in art evaluation. - See Hansen, Nerdrum, 17–19.
- Hansen alternatively gives the title in English as “Emancipation” (Nerdrum,
20); he discusses the theme of sexual liberation in Nerdrum’s early paintings on 20–21. - See Hansen, Nerdrum, 24–25 and Pettersson, Nerdrum, 34.
- See Hansen, Nerdrum, 25.
- The chief anarchist influence on Nerdrum was his elementary school teacher,
Jens Bjørnesoe. See Hansen, Nerdrum, 19 and Vine, Nerdrum, 26. Nerdrum has called
himself a “historical anarchist” according to John Bullard, “Preface,” Odd Nerdrum: The
Drawings, New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art, 1994, 7.
Notes to Pages 20–22 197