Not many figurative painters participated in this year’s fall fair alone. Odd Nerdrum was one of them. – Culture and Entertainment NRK

A quarter since 1882, Statens Høstutstilling has showcased contemporary Norwegian art. It is Norway’s largest and most important gallery and sets its agenda within the Norwegian art world.

This year there was a record number of applicants, up to 2530 and Odd Nerdrum was one of them.

He wanted to include his latest major work Three Men in a Boat at Statens Høstutstilling, but was refused.

Fellow artist Viburn Sand reacts to this.

– It’s absolutely unbelievable that Odd Nerdrum was rejected for our leading international pride at the Fall Fair.

Sand points out that Nerdrum is in its own category.

– He is one of those who have kept the Autumn Fair alive and has become a kind of tradition in the past fifty years in which he has participated with his erotic paintings.

– This type of art is such an important and huge part of Norwegian cultural life that it is a pity that no one is allowed to experience it. Then the exhibition does not reflect what is happening in Norwegian art.

NRK was in contact with a total of eight graphic artists who were not represented during the exhibition, which opened on September 11.

Corrupt powers are too powerful

On Wednesday, Odd Nerdrum took over when he unveiled “Three Men in a Boat” at the Galleri Fineart in Oslo. Several hundred showed up to see the painting, which will hang there through November.

When NRK Odd Nerdrum asked himself what he thought about not including the painting in the fall exhibition, he first replied that he had no particular thoughts on the issue.

Then the famous painter opens up a bit more and shares his thoughts on how to choose art. He thinks it’s never been good or bad at the fall fair.

– Nerdrum says that corrupt forces are very powerful.

Niedrom tells that when one is a special kind of person so is the one who mentions himself. He believes that his painting did not have a chance to be chosen, because the jury may be an art similar to a painting that they make themselves.

– I’m used to being rejected in many cities. It is a daily condition.

Nedrum also takes the time to explain what he is trying to convey in the image.

I try to describe the three stages in life. The selfish man. The Earth-centered man, those who take care of the world, as politicians. And finally, the man who revolves around the sun. Leonardo da Vinci in a way out of society.

Nerdrum and those around it have been painting large Baroque and Renaissance-inspired compositions over many decades. They call the classical pictorial measurement method.

Collages depict human figures, animals, or other recognizable objects, as opposed to abstract art and non-figurative art.

Did Nerdrum fix this?

NRK’s ​​art critic, Mona Bahle Bjerke was present during the unveiling. She thinks the painting is so weak that she almost finds it hard to believe that it may have been Odd Nerdrum himself who painted it.

– I think he doesn’t maintain the level of Nerdrum at all. Nerdrum is one of the greatest painters of the history of modern Norwegian art. Towering representative of the Norwegian postmodern!

You think that naked bodies form luminous holes in the image and that there is no connection between the figures and the background.

Bjerke says the fall fair gave him a friendly handshake by refusing to take a picture. And that such a low-quality painting would blur his image as a master, if it were shown to a wide audience.

– I test that this picture lacks the strong expressive force that characterizes the fierce political realism of Nerdrum in the seventies, and old surrealism in the nineties.

During its heyday, Nerdrum has the ability to say something universal about progress and anxiety that is seen as important to us today.

– very fun.

Young painter William Heimdall Barbs From Pahle Bjerke last summer, when he exhibited his work The Prince of Painting at Stavern for the first time.

Self-image with an erect penis has improved a lot since the last time I studied it.

She says he works with light in a safer way and that his face is more expressive than it was before.

– Here we see a young painter in development. It’s so much fun. The Autumn Fair can be considered to include Heimdal.

She explains that every quarter, there is a painting in the exhibition, one of several types that are weaker than this painting. But she points out, the autopsy isn’t quite in place.

– The way he holds the brush is not entirely reliable and the stem is rather large in relation to the head. But now the head sits better on the body.

– Presumably little.

There is a jury that selects art for Statens Høstutstilling. The jury is democratically elected for another quarter of a year and is made up of members of the Norwegian Plastic Artists Union.

According to the communication leader in Norwegian Plastic Artists, Katrin Svilland, there is no consistent view of the art accompanying the exhibition. According to the statute, the jury should not base its technical decisions.

Anyone can submit artwork and the jury doesn’t know who made the artwork they’re considering.

Odd Nerdrum has participated in the Fall Fair many times before, but overall, 90 percent of applicants are rejected, no matter what denomination, style, or genre they’re working in.

The eye of the needle is narrow. Of the 2,530 applicants, only 118 works were included in the exhibition itself.

Odd Nerdrum debuted at the Autumn Fair in 1967 with the work «Icarus». He exhibited his work at least 13 times during his career.

In 1974 he took part in the work “Liberation”.And In 1975 with work “Acceptance”And In 1977 with “Spring”And 1978 with “The Murder of Andreas Baader”.And In 1980 with “Refugees at sea”And In 1986 with “Revier”And In 1989 with “Dawn”And In 1991 with “Five people around a water well”And 1993 with “The Young Man and the Horse’s Head”.And in 1994 with “Woman kills an injured man”And 1995 with “Kato Saturn Pedersen”.. The last time he participated was in 2012 with the work “No Witness”.