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I am saddened to be the bearer of such shocking news.

My mentor and dear friend, Odd Nerdrum, has been sentenced to two years in prison by a Norwegian court. He is a man who has dedicated his life's work to defending human dignity, a man who has given his profound knowledge freely to thousands of students without charging a single penny, a man who has inspired millions with his masterly and empathetic paintings - a man who generously opened his home and family to my wife and me when we lost our jobs in New York City, in the midst of the financial crisis, and were quite literally homeless...

Do they want Odd to demonstrate "his good attitude in confessing his crimes?" Do they want to make a political scapegoat out of him? I'll let you decide for yourself, but if you ask me, something is rotten in the state of Norway. Read more

- Richard T. Scott

Dommen mot Nerdrum er nok et bevis på at det Ayn Rand skrev i boken ”De som beveger verden” faktisk er sant, der småligheten gjentar seg. For la oss jage vekk de få mennesker som tør å stikke hodet frem der de utfører handlinger som skiller seg ut. La dem straffes, la dem bli forfulgt i pressen og døm dem til fengsel! På denne dag skjems jeg over å ha et Norsk pass utstedet av en stat som er mer opptatt av å straffe og at dømme, enn det å vise empati og forståelse.

- C.F. Wesenberg

Equally saddening during the Kitsch Inquisition, is the opposing notion that a person's "contributions to culture" should mitigate ones' punishment. What culture? Norwegian culture? I am thankful that Odd Nerdrum did not willingly contribute to a culture that has made a living off of punishing him. Odd suffers from tourettes Syndrome not Stockholm Syndrome. Odd Nerdrum has contributed to Greco-Roman culture not Germano-Enlightenment culture and this is why he is being punished.

- Shane Young

Kva er problemet med Nerdrum? Mannen har betalt alt han skal og lang meir til, dvs han har betalt langt meir enn det han burde. Og so no skal han straffast hardare enn valdtektsmenn og valdsmenn? Eg er KVALM. Det er eit svik mot norsk kultur og eit svik mot norske skattebetalarar som må betala fengselsopphaldet.

Det seier litt om Noregs forvaltarar - Eit land som har SONINGSKØ dar grove valdsforbrytarar går fri fordi ein ikkje hev plass til dei, fordi Noregs fengslar er FULLE! So skal ein stenga inne ein av Noregs store kulturelle sønnir- som har betalt langt meir skatt enn nokon av oss vil- og det med tanke på at han IKKJE hev budd i dette politikar-byråkrat-forpesta landet. Snakka meg om SVIK frå myndigheita mot oss alle. -Eg står dykk med i tankane! Hald ut.

- I-Haoko Tveitt

Im terribly disappointed and disgusted with Norway´s politics and agenda against the artist Odd Nerdrum. It´s pretty clear for me, by reading closely all the facts presented by the media and by Nerdrum himself, that Norway is plotting what we could call it a witch hunt. It´s real sad to watch, helpless, a country treating so poorly an artist wich should been cherished like a precious jewel instead.

Not only a talented painter with the brush but a thinker, a hard working citizen, Nerdrum is pure inspiration not only for any artist, but why he shouldnt be for any man? I have him in high regard, respect and admiration, and I can tell that at least a good bunch of other fellow artists in my country could easily say the same. For us, so far away from Norway, he IS a precious jewel. So why he cant be treated this way by his fellow men in his own land? It´s obvious there is something pretty wrong going on in Norway, and certainly, the one to blame is not this man, an artist, a father, a made man, a hard worker who fought the art system his entire life in pursue of his dream.

Im sorry Norwegian authorities, but in my country, called by many the Third World, this is what we call injustice, shame, conspiracy... a political trap. This was not to be expected in a rather developed country like yours. If Nerdrum is not taken seriously and protected the way he should be, than, I offer him political asylum in my own country, under my responsability and good care, and I would gladly share my home, food and anything I have with him and his family. Here, he will be free, respected and taken very seriously, like the jewel he is.

- Marcio Guilarducci

“Bagattellenes tyrrani”

I don`know anyone of you or Nerdrum, but it`s almost like I sometimes feel the pain. And the system is very dangerous! The psychological press and the meeting with coldness, simplicity, machine-like people (wards), a non-humane, strange and unlogical culture with no brains at all. I hope it will NOT happen! It is also extra hard to handle when you feel or know that you are innocent. And if you can look through the system and reveals it, it will be even worse. And very hard, sometimes even harder for the wifes and the kids outside in the socalled free society. And the hard times also start when the prisoner is realised! Other kinds of problems. You can`t reform the prison. A place where you meet strange and socalled unnormal people, who when you get to know them aren`t so strange at all, most of them. They are more like you and me! Though luckily there are some possibilities even should one get a sentence. But then you need information, knowledge and assistance so you can meet the evil with the best optimal strategy! Keep on!

- Tom Lasse Virik

Nå skal altså regimets høyeste rett stenge landets kunstner inne. Bak tunge dører skal kunstneren forvares. Samfunnet skal skånes; regimet har en mistanke til han. Folket mobiliserer ikke for kunstneren. Solidaritet og hyllest finnes kun for dem som bygger konsentrasjonsleirer, og injiserer gravide med kvikksølv. Nasjonalsosialistenes sofistikerte bombing og etniske rensing har brakt folkets stolthet til nye høyder – usymmetriske folkemord tolerer folket lett. Stanken som hviler over Norge blir strammere. Troen på Gud er for lengst er byttet ut, med troen på cellegift og vaksiner. Med drap skal verdens fattige kues – for nasjonalsosialister trenger lebensraum. Det er ikke nok til alle, hulker folket, og omdøper massemord til fredsoperasjoner - det samstemte Norge er blitt redd sitt eget speilbilde. For dissidenter blir fort pasienter, uten rettigheter, på Norske institusjoner. Her blinker det sjelden i blitslamper, for nasjonalsosialismens institusjoner har orden i sine protokoller. Dette vet alle, men hvis kommende generasjoner skulle stusse, et øyeblikk, over den manglende motkampen mot norsk nasjonalsosialsosialisme, etnisk rensing og folkemord, så skal dere vite, at de som kom før dere, de tålte ikke sitt eget selvportrett.

I solidaritet

- Oystein Tandberg

It was September 6th, 2011 when I read Turid Spildo’s blog posting. Eloquently, she detailed the recent months in which she and her husband battled tax evasion charges -- at times, in the face of international media frenzy. Her husband, of course, is Odd Nerdrum. Controversial traditionalist painter. Arch-enemy of the modern art establishment. Founder and inspirational head of the kitsch painting movement. Norwegian celebrity, exile and, now, convicted tax evader. He's unfortunately not as well known in his other role... teacher and mentor – and not just for me, but for the dozens of students he’s welcomed from all over the world over the years. All he ever asked in return for the priceless painting (and life) lessons he’d give was a little help in and around his studio. It wasn’t only Turid's harrowing account of how she frantically scoured bank records looking for “missing amounts”, or the shameful badgering her husband faced during the trial that affected me…

It was the bonfire -- the midsummer bonfire that didn’t happen this year, as it had the fourteen years prior. I was there for three of them, but the first one is a special memory for me. In the summer of 2004, I arrived in Norway with no clue of what to expect. Before I knew it, I was asked to help gather gargantuan amounts of wooden planks and tree limbs that were to be transported closer to the shore where there were massive, smooth, ancient rocks. There we crafted a sizable wood pyre, which was set ablaze on the evening of June 24th. A red-blooded American in every sense of the word, “midsummer” didn’t mean anything to me until that day, the first of many new cultural experiences for which I have the Nerdrums to thank. The thought of them being unable to gather with family, friends, and newly welcomed students around a bonfire this year, as they had done for so long, somehow brought the stark reality of their plight home for me in a way that internet news reports had not.

What Turid wrote helped me come to an important realization -- my regrets had come to exceed my gratitude, and that's a place I never want to be. Sometimes, I think, we need to be reminded of what we already know. Odd, a tax evader? Don't buy it. Tax evasion is a pretty lazy crime -- we're talking about a man who dissects the history of painting, art, and philosophy with a frightening attention to nuance and detail. I don't think I ever saw another person get more out of one working day. He truly is an outlaw... ... but only on a canvas! Read it here

- Robert Dale Williams, 9/9/2011

Just came back from a trip abroad without internet, only to find that the Norwegian "judicial system" has sentenced Odd Nerdrum to 2 years in prison, for a so called tax evasion. Not only that, but he will also not be allowed to paint because it is his profession. I find it really upsetting to see how Norway treats not only their best painter of all time, but one of the best painters who ever walked the face of this earth. What Odd Nerdrum has accomplished in his work, and the inspiration he provides painters world wide has no comparison. A bureaucratic monster like the Norwegian government obviously doesn't care about his greatness, and I will now present what I believe is the motivation behind this judicial farse: Independence is the state's worst fear. The state finds it threatening that an individual is able to achieve economical and reputable success, despite working completely outside the power structure. Someone who works independently, has different values and offers an alternative to the "state approved" agenda, in this case the art-agenda. Anyone who thinks I'm now exaggerating is either blind (by choice or naivety), or just hasn't spent enough time in the field.

Odd Nerdrum is a phenomenon that challenges the consensus and sheep-mentality that exists in the contemporary art-world. An art-world that has long been politically charged, corrupt and deeply infected by nepotism. Odd Nerdrum is therefore seen as a serious threat that "must be dealt with", preferably in the most inhumane way possible. I think this trial is also about sending a message to everyone else who aspires to do what Odd Nerdrum has achieved, in terms of independence.

So, how does the state deal with such an issue? The 2 easiest ways to attack an innocent individual who appears threatening to the current power structure is to: either charge them with sex crime (like Julian Assange, another political farse which shows that Sweden is no better than Norway in these matters), or like in Odd Nerdrum's case: to let the IRS dig their claws into them. Facing the power of the state, the individual is like poor Don Quijote fighting windmills. It doesn't matter if you are right, you will still loose if the state has made it's mind up... and it usually has.

I will not even bother speculating if Odd Nerdrum is really guilty of tax evasion or not, that is really not the point here and way outside my expertise. Though for the record: I don't believe for a second that the charges are just. Still, for the government not to be satisfied with a fine, and instead sentencing him to 2 years in prison with no possibility of painting, is completely outrageous. It is a worse crime to keep a painter like Odd Nerdrum from working, than it is to (if at all) accidently not pay enough taxes. The Norwegian state is already one of the richest in the world, and seeing their greed and how they treat a national icon is truly a tragedy.

Swedish politician Björn Rosengren once called Norway "the last Soviet state". I am deeply sorry to agree with him, even though I would claim that it now goes for most of the western world. It is obvious that there is no justice any longer. The judicial system is nothing more than a political weapon that serves the current power structure. Integrity, common sense and humanistic values are seriously lost, and the individual is now completely at the mercy of a corrupt, totalitarian state.

Two tragic crimes that I know of hit Norway this summer: The first was committed by one against many, the second by many against one.

FINAL NOTE: Kids don't need to read Kafka in school anymore, we are living it.

- Joakim Ericsson

Probably many know the work of this great contemporary genius. But not everyone might consider that he is also the author of one of the most important cultural and philosophical battles of our time, a man who dedicated all his life to the research, the actualization and the transmission of the principles and techniques of that painting which, as every “wise making”, let the man be able to show “what is beyond words,” bringing it to life in front of the eyes of the spectators, helping to give them back, even just for a moment, the seriousness the dignity and the beauty that the “ordinary madness” of everyday life, and a nihilistic art devoted to the cult of the dead and of the useless, are trying at every turn, now, to steal them.

I do not know others in the contemporary world who have made ​​available their incredible talent, free of charge for so many students (thousands). Odd Nerdrum is therefore succeeded in a crucial enterprise in which most of the western world governments have failed: the creation of spaces consonant with keeping the teaching of a craft, where to allow even young people with few economic resources, but still having talent, to have access to a superior training and taking advantage of knowledge of an experienced master (in the East is different: for example, there are masters in Japan, who are appointed Heritage of the Nation, and are helped in the work of transmission of their art).

It happens that tax investigations are made ​​on his earnings and is accused of having evaded taxes in a period between 1989 and 2002. Despite his lawyers demonstrate clearly how everything is in order and that the fund set aside in Austria (beware! Austria is NOT Swiss) for $ 900 000 as a contract with U.S. gallery, would serve to repay the damage that some of his paintings of the ’80s were suffering because of the use an experimental medium, he is sentenced to repay a sum of money very large, so that now the Norwegian state should restore what was paid in surplus!

One can only imagine the turmoil in his family which is completely dedicated to painting, music (his wife Turid Spildo is an exceptional singer and violinist), to study and teaching. To condemn one of the few genes of painting that the Western world has come to life in its last centuries of history, to vegetate in jail for two years without being able to paint, is equivalent to a death sentence.

Odd Nerdrum (one of the few truly positive examples in the world of contemporary art) is a political prisoner of the civilized justice system and of the civilized press, of the civilized state of Norway.

- Massimo Tizzano

I live in Minnesota, USA, (lots of Norwegians here), and have for years been transfixed by Rembrandt'a "Lucretia" in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. That is my touchstone. And I have admired Odd's painting for a long time, which obviously follows from works like this but in many ways transcends them. Two days ago, I was in San Francisco on business and stopped at the Weinstein Gallery and asked to see Odd's "Self Portrait in a Trunk." They had to go to a lot of trouble to pull it out of storage to show me, but I made them do it. I started by looking at the back of the painting, just to admire the unique herringbone canvas. Then I went all over the front at very close range. Every inch. Very beautiful. But it was then that I learned from the gallery owner about Odd's tax problems from last summer. That figure in the trunk began to take on a whole new meaning.

I am 62 years old, and you begin to feel the pressure of time in new ways after 60. I cannot imagine Odd will be jailed, at age 67, and if so, that anyone would be so cruel as to deny such a genius the right to paint in his cell or share his gift with others. It must feel like a death sentence. Every moment is precious. I paint as a hobby. Self-taught. Inspired by my "Lucretia" and, now, Odd alone in that trunk. Painting is difficult and very humbling. To do it at Odd's level is almost unimaginable. Keep him free. We will all be the better for it. And I don't think Norway needs any more of his money - but, like all of us, they could sure use more of his art.

- Keith Dixon

Dear Odd Nerdrum with family and creative supporters; If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime and quit crying out this bullshit of self justice. The world has other and serious business to take care of! Please pay your taxes like other hard working people in this country have to do every day. And remember it needs more than a tunica to get sympathy. What about some decent humiliation when you are standing in full public with your tax tunica around your ankles.

- Kjell Arne Rusti

Nå er det slik at de fleste her i landet er en (kunst) skatt i seg selv og det igjen gir ingen rette til ikke å utføre den del av vår samfunnsplikt som er å betale vår skatt av våre inntekter ,,skulle det være slik at hver enkelt selv skal bestemme hva som er skattepliktig så frykter jeg for at det hadde vært snaut med sosiale goder her i landet.

Jeg vil tro at Odd Nerdrum også til tider har mottatt sine sosiale goder når han har hatt krav på de , også hans sønner Jeg kan ikke forstå hva som rettferdiggjør at han (og kanskje flere) skal kunne heve seg over disse lovene . Igjen vil jeg si at jeg er ""møkk lei"" alle de som kritiserer det systemet vi har og gjennomhuller det på sin måte for å unndra seg sine plikter som Norske statsborgere , det seg være kunstnere ,skipsmeglere , og handelsmenn av alle kategorier. Mange av disse reiser ut og bosetter seg i andre land etter at det landet de kom fra (Norge) har gitt dem fantastiske muligheter for å gjøre seg rike , noe jeg faktisk unner enhver som lykkes med det de foretar seg. Jeg tør vedde på at når den tid kommer så skal de vel ha både pensjon og hjelp gjennom trygdesystemet de var så glade for å unnslippe den dagen de endelig fikk reist fra fedrelandet for å dra til et skatteparadis hvor de IGJEN skal slippe å betale skatt ,, se på de som virkelig sliter i disse landene dere rømmer til ,det er mange der som virkelig har tunge dager fordi skattesystemet i det landet bare tilgodeser de rike,,,, dere burde skjemmes over deres handlinger. Nå ser jeg også at den samme grådigheten inntar sjelene til deres sønner og døtre , gud bedre ,, hvor skal dette ende

- Oddvar Åsegg

Uten at jeg vet om dere interesserer dere for fotball, men i disse dager er noen norske fotballklubber i ferd med å sverte landets omdømme som et forholsvis uskyldig lite land med lite korrupsjon. I sin iver etter å fremme idretten (?) holder man unna penger som blant annet skulle blitt beskattet etter norske lover og regler til fellesskapets gode. Likeledes kan jeg ikke fri meg fra å trekke paralleller til en ellers flott kunstner, der verdier blir undratt beskatning. Jeg stoler på vårt rettsapparat og at lover og regler der blir fulgt. Man har muligheter til å anke saker til høyesterett om nødvendig. Når endelig dom er felt, er det gjort av vår rettstat som jeg anser som troverdig. Det blir helt patetisk å høre deres klagesang i denne sammenheng. Regner med at dette aldri blir lagt ut på deres nettside, som er kjemisk fri for motsforestillinger i forhold til deres sak.

- Tore Monsen

Is it possible for you, as a family, to understand how unfair this claim is to the common man? Do you honestly think an artist should be above the law because he has painting skills that might be better than the majority?

When you say "Instead of trying to understand the situation", what do you mean by this? Everybody but you are liars? That he didnt mean to brake the law, and if so has a good reason to...?

People that think thay are above others have mental illness, and should get help. After reading what you write here, it cant be very wrong to recommend a good doctor....

Must agree though that NRK should have the entire intervju online, so people can see and hear your lame excuses for stealing from the government.

- Knut Kaasa

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