Odd Nerdrum Quotes

• The world somehow is always the same. The only thing that can improve is the individual life. One can live a good life. One can give life a meaning. Either by drinking oneself to death or by painting oneself to death or by loving oneself to death.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Love, Life, Death

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  36 Copy quote

• Because modernism has conquered art, kitsch is the savior of talent and devotion.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Art, Kitsch, Talent

  26 Copy quote

• Kitsch is deep in its superficiality. Art is superficially deep.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Art, Kitsch, Art Is

  20 Copy quote

• Everything is a meaningless struggle against nothing and when people say that the world has become a better place that is a false development-optimism. Nothing exists which ever becomes better. Everything stays the same. Somehow, there is nothing. That is so sad. Nothing to come to. Everything is an illusion. A very sweet illusion.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Sweet, Struggle, People

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  23 Copy quote

• The point is that only one thing matters in this world, to prepare oneself for death. One can try to be as comfortable as possible until one dies... Because being comfortable does not have any meaning either. It just does not. Everything is only a big meaninglessness that one must bear.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Trying, Doe, World

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  26 Copy quote

• If you fall asleep on horseback, the horse will stop by the rock. Art is a car. Kitsch is a horse.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Art, Horse, Fall

  14 Copy quote

• A topic is not interesting enough until it is multi layered. There is no vigor in a motive without many layers. One also learns quite a lot when one has been working on a difficult painting. That is my feeling. I believe that.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Believe, Interesting, Feelings

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  18 Copy quote

• I believe one must be such a big egoist that it is possible to avoid the big tendencies that cut of your head. What we call fascism and things like that. It is about egoism. When you are egoistic enough you avoid such things. You become an incurable individualist and in that case you are sailing in your own sea anyway. What is very enjoyable for the individualist is to find this kind of "happy spaces" to be in and to live in.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Believe, Cutting, Sea

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  17 Copy quote

• We are all kitsch on our deathbeds.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Kitsch, Deathbed

  9 Copy quote

• To be contemporary actually means to be an artist. [But] I do not feel contemporary in my work. I perceive my work as old-fashioned. It does not have a frame of actuality in our time or locality.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Mean, Artist, Doe

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  16 Copy quote

• I had a choice. I could become an economist & managing director. I choose to do something else. I would have become much, much richer than I am. I choose to not do that. It's that simple.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Simple, Choices, Directors

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  14 Copy quote

• If a girl is in love with a poor guy and chooses him, then that is worst for her. If she chooses a rich man, it will be to her advantage. Everything will be fine.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Girl, Men, Guy

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  11 Copy quote

• I have no ideals. I have no will that the world should be any better or worse or anything... Because I know that for every genius there exists a robbing murderer. There is nothing to do about that. The world is such that if you want to find the intensity within the genuine, you will at the same time find the criminals around the nearest corner. And if you eliminate that genetic quality in the human being, then everyone will become very inactive and very boring, but on the other hand we get rid of criminality.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Hands, Quality, Criminals

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  12 Copy quote

• Contemporary art is based on that an artist is supposed to go into art history in the same way as an art historian. When the artist produces something he or she relates to it with the eye of an art historian/critic. I have the feeling that when I am working it is more like working with soap opera or glamour. It is emotional and not art criticism or history of art.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Art, Eye, Emotional

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  9 Copy quote

• I believe in positive despotism. That means an exchange between people. I'm thinking about the fact that someone serves me breakfast in my bed. I can not see anything wrong in that. Because everything is a question of exchanges between people. Everyone has some specific possibilities and can to a certain extent do whatever they want. If one wants to become rich one can study economy and if one wants to be poor one can choose to become a professor in butterfly wings for example. So we can choose.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Believe, Butterfly, Mean

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  13 Copy quote

• Desire is something very egoistic. If you desire something, you also have to take the consequences of that. You have to study the market and see how it can go. I mean to become an artist... You never get the Nobel-price for example. You can normally never become a millionaire. Very few become millionaires, so the circumstances are very bad if one becomes an artist. And that should be taken into consideration.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Taken, Mean, Artist

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  12 Copy quote

• I have always been astonished by hate. Revenge and hate. That is such strange human elements. I have seen a lot of that in my life. I am just as surprised each time. By revenge and hate.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Revenge, Hate, Elements

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  9 Copy quote

• Art is a car, kitsch is a horse.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Horse, Art, Car

  7 Copy quote

• One talks much more about the evil than about the good. That is a paradox. We should only talk about the good to lighten up our existence. Chase anxiousness/fear away for a moment before it sneaks back in again to our life.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Evil, Moments, Paradox

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  7 Copy quote

• When you choose your profession, you also choose your own downfall or success. If one chooses to become an artist it is 99% certain that it will go to hell. So you should not become that. If you study economics on Oslo, 99% of all students will do very well and 1% will reach the top.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Artist, Oslo, Students

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  7 Copy quote

• Talking about success in society, no one can complain, because today everyone can choose what he or she wants. They don't just have to choose between being proletarian or middle-class. Those kinds of things do not exist anymore. Today working class boys can play football and become multimillionaires. On football! There are no longer classes, who say that we are poor, we are suppressed by you etc.

  Odd Nerdrum

  Football, Boys, Talking

  Source: sturm-lie.be

  5 Copy quote

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