Monday, October 27, 2014

Odd Nerdrum - A Circumstantial Injustice

Posted by Gina Higgins American-Noir at Monday, October 27, 2014

Odd Nerdrum "Self Portrait As A Dog" - Oil on Canvas

I know, Odd Nerdrum again – But every now and then I need to remind myself of the real reasons why I am an artist, and as an existentialist this inevitably means keeping mindful of those moments when something takes your breath away or forever changes how you look at life.
More on this here: Kitsch Is Only State of Mind

Undoubtedly, those of us who repeatedly throw ourselves into the flames need to be able to stand the heat and sometimes be prepared to accept the Kafkaesque consequences.

On August 17, 2011, a Norwegian Court sentenced artist Odd Nerdrum to two years’ prison time for alleged tax fraud. Most disturbing were the terms of his sentence denying Nerdrum the right to paint while incarcerated. Of note, he was not charged with failure to pay but rather with tax evasion by allegedly hiding assets in a bank account that was not his own. Upon his appeal (and with maybe just a tiny bit of retribution because of his outspoken political proclivities) the court further increased the term an additional ten months.

The crux of the case revolves around 40 experimental paintings Nerdrum sold between 1998 and 2002, to collectors who later complained the innovative process he had used on them resulted in paint that began to “drip and melt” when exposed to heat. After a decade of recreating and shipping the pieces back to the buyers at his own expense, the Norwegian IRS accused Nerdrum of painting these additional pieces not for replacement but rather for sale, thereby evading tax.

The case was brought to the Supreme Court last year on the basis of new evidence and to overrule the previous sentence and be tried in a further Court of Appeal. This last round of proceedings was decided 16^th June 2014 in favour of the prosecution, sentencing the artist to one year eight months in prison plus an additional eight months under house arrest.

The following is Nerdrum’s closing statement to the Court:

"Honourable judge, since my debut fifty years ago, in Oslo, Norway, I have had little credibility. And as Dag Solhjell says, therefore I have had less legal protection. That might sound strange, but it is because I have stood quite alone with what one could call classical figuration - in a time when everyone should be modern - modern artists. It is probably difficult to understand if one stands a little outside it, but, art is in many ways a religion. It is ordained as a religion after Christianity started to... fade away. So that... I have had great difficulties with the milieu. And this again, has settled as a layer of sludge over the entire intellectual milieu.

They say Nerdrum is not credible. I remember that professor Malmanger once said: "We all know that Nerdrum is a villain". And this was at such a meeting where I was present- but the point is that in all these years, the treatment of me, has not been very pretty. So many say that the treatment I have been given by the Norwegian rule of law is that - "Yes, of course, it had to happen". Not because I have done anything wrong, but because it was in the atmosphere that, that man, we shall take this man one day. And this is in many ways the ending point - all the other things they have done against me are not very dangerous, so they had to find something, and I always say that; If one has not murdered, and not raped a child, then one finds something else for which to punish a person, and then they always turn to taxes.

Now I am not talking about the details in this tax case, but generally speaking - they go to taxes, and this one can also see in foreign countries when they don't like people - they turn to that, because then they can then keep on with them, make them suffer, for quite a long time. This is also the reason for... it is fifty years of lacking credibility which has resulted in me ending up in this situation. It is not just: Yes, here there are numbers that do not match. It is generally seen as a terrible situation that I have been living in, for so many years and therefore I think that it is terrible if I should end my days... I am now seventy years old... to end my days in prison without the chance to get anything done anymore. Not to work with what I should have been doing, but put me in prison because I was so damn honest with the customers. ”

The accusations and resultant charges and sentencing imposed on Nerdrum, who quite frankly to many of us in the arts is regarded as one of Norway’s national treasures, trespassed traditional statutes of limitation. The case lacked prima facie evidence and prosecutors employed an insidiously spurious accounting system.

Further, a sentence imposing the inhuman punishment of stripping Nerdrum of his inherent freedom to create is a shocking and appalling injustice coming from a country that purports to be progressive in its position on human rights.

Odd Nerdrum "The Arrest" Oil on Canvas - 1975

I have every confidence Nerdrum will find a way to triumph over his legal battles. Sadly however, the decisions made by the Norwegian Court System with regard to this artist’s right to create are testament to modern humanity’s failure to recognise and treat creatives and visionaries with the respect they so deserve.

When our schools continue to be robbed of music and arts programs due to lack of funding or failure to acknowledge their significance and relevance in the advancement of civilisation, we not only destroy the aspirations of future creative geniuses such as Nerdrum and others like him, but ultimately establish our place in history as the Era of cultural vapidity.