During a speech Odd Nerdrum held at a press conference at the opening of the exhibition ”Odd Nerdrum- Paintings 1978 – 1998” in Astrup Fearnley Museeum, Oslo 24.09.98, Nerdrum made history and said:” Kitsch is about timeless and eternally human issues and problems, the pathetic regardless form – what we call: the humanum.

Kitsch serves life, and seeks the individual in contrast to Art and its distance “ (you can also read this speech in On Kitsch 2001. Nerdrum et al.). “ In Kitsch skill is the final criteria of quality. The work of the hand is exposing it self in the light of existing norms. Kitsch has therefore no protection since the standard is the best works done in history…Art serves and exist for Art itself and seeks the public sphere…Kitsch serves life and seeks the single individual.” When a journalist claimed that Kitsch was sofa decoration Nerdrum replied: “ It is wrong that Kitsch only has to be sofa decoration”, and refers to the famous essay by Hermann Broch in “Kitsch and Art” from 1930, ”because then would Wagner and Tsjakovskij had to disappear, but Broch emphasize them as great Kitsch, since they operate with great drama and complicated things which is beautiful performed. This is the doubleness of Kitsch on a higher level”.

Odd Nerdrums definition on Kitsch has following values: craft, the single individual and human emotions. The evaluation of its theme and timeless styles complexity is the possibility of grading Kitsch in high or low Kitsch. This is quite different from our low trash associations with Kitsch today (This separation between high and low mass arts is currently worked on by Skurdal on her degree in Master of Social Science).

If the reader thinks back on Nerdrums biography and his position in the Norwegian Art World, you can easy grasp his character with the help from Hermann Broch (1930) when he (Broch) from his platonic – Kantian angel labels the kitsch producer in this words:”The producer of kitsch is not one who produce inferior Art, or a person that has no abilities. You can absolutely not measure him out of an aesthetic standard, because he is an ethic disgusting person, a criminal that wants the radical evil: He is a pig “(Broch, Hermann).

When Broch writes (and speaks) from the Platonic and Kantian angel and describes the ethical evil agent from that angel, is it in that terms Broch has its value system. Plato and Kant are his values, and that represent the good value system. In other words: Art is the ethical good.

In this Kitsch Forum we see things from the opposite angel: namely from the Aristotelian and Randian. This angel represents according to Broch the evil. I believe and have Nerdrum with me when I claim that it is his systems of values which are evil, and I have scientific thesis that will prove this philosophically, sociologically and historically (In current scientific work by Skurdal 2005).

The good value system is the State – collectivism and altruism, and with Hegel’s Zeitgeist as its leading star. The artist as an agent – the ethical good – creates what themselves claim is morally good (since the curatoriat claims that from them), while the ethical evil and disgust seize the object and reproduce its natural beauty with high techniqual abilities. Kitsch creates the humanum in the most living and timeless form.

The Kitsch producer learns technique abilities from the old masters of the past, just as what Nerdrum has done. Hard work, a big talent, abilities and the wish and longing for the old masters, and not the modern- “the so called original” is why Broch scream as a pietistic disciple that a kitsch producer is a pig. Kitsch is not following institutional norms and rules.
Art and the good Kantian moral as its partner and friend, and as Kant himself put it: the dominating ideas have always right, and your duty as your ticket to freedom is to follow this dominating moral codex result in this: “Don’t dear to stick your neck out”.
That’s why modern Art look the same.

Since Kitsch has its basis in the past – with its timeless techniques it is viewed as “the great evil” with reference and contrast to the Arts and its l’art pour l’art. The good is Art, and Kitsch is bad.

The reality which the audience gaze in the Kitsch painting is: Direct to the truth and beauty. A is A. The beauty is the empathically understanding of the human being, simultaneous as the concretization of the metaphysical evaluations of values in the motives opens for individual experience through our – the audience- senses. We reach the truth objectively. Kitsch respects the human principle that A is A, and that our faculty of reason is never silent.

Kitsch satisfies the individual because Kitsch acknowledges its existence.

With truth as a reference too truth as a criterion in motives and themes, is useless in Kitsch. Kitsch is a “styled” story about reality. Kitsch – the metaphysical (value evaluations) and epistemologically (psycho – epistemology) principles are based on…”one external reality which is objective, and which reproduce itself when the audience integrate the timeless craft (man/woman) ship.

The theme is styled - “romantically”- since everyone should have the opportunity to use their own imagination that gives them an individual joyride of Kitsch mentality.

This experience of Kitsch mentality is experienced at its most living when it on its highest level seizes you with drama and emotions. The audience is as Nerdrum puts it: “The people who freely choose outside the time dimension…”

We - the audience - can with our own eyes and independent faculty of judgment grasps what is painted since the old master technique is the carrier of meaning and gives us an understanding of the content in question. That process results in personal feelings based on different individual experiences.

This article are based on Hanna Cecilie Skurdals revolutionary articles that was printed in the Norwegian Philosophical review “AerA” nr 1 and 4 2002. Click here to request order information by email.

Skurdal is currently (2005) working on a scientific masterpiece with Nerdrum that explores all of her thesis in theory and practice.