l Odd Nerdrum (1944) paints in the tra- 3. THE ELITARIAN ART GAME dag solhjell dition of Caravaggio and Rembrandt. Among contemporary Norwegian artists, his In countries with a cultural policy name is today the most widely known. His based on the principle of arm-length dis- paintings draw the largest audiences and tance between politics and art, the distrib- the defeat of the sell at the highest prices when they are ution of these two assets is left to the art exhibited. In 1998 he declared himself not world alone. The result is an extremely curatoriat to be an artist but a kitsch painter, and uneven distribution of the assets: most named his paintings kitsch. This paper players end up with few assets, while a odd nerdrum - studies the game of symbolic power around small elite ends up with most of it. On the this instance of cultural disorder - or is it surface, the ethic of the elitarian game a case study of the order? appears to be: winner takes all. The It is often useful, if we say to ourselves American and French art games are elitari- aquisition and use while philosophizing: to name something, an in this sense. is like putting a name label on a thing. of symbolic power Wittgenstein. 4. THE EGALITARIAN ART GAME 1. THE ART WORLD AS A GAME In Norway and other social-democratic countries, cultural policy is egalitarian and The art world - in the philosophical welfare oriented. Their governments take sense of Arthur Danto and in the sociologi- steps to level out the unequal distribution of cal sense of Pierre Bourdieu and Howard S. assets among players by political means. Becker - is the playground for a social The ethic of the social democratic art game game. The art game has it’s rules, players, is: everybody has a right to art, or art is for stakes, ethics and plots, varying somewhat everybody. The governments take responsi- from country to country and from one peri- bility for the material welfare of artists in od to another. In the Norwegian art game, their countries. Thus, there are three assets Odd Nerdrum is the grand master. Here, I at stake in the Norwegian art game. In will attempt to explain how he has earned addition to artistic recognition and market this title by defeating the lords of the game value, there are also government subsidies. - the curatoriat. This creates an egalitarian art game. 2. THE STAKES 5. THE PLAYGROUNDS AND THEIR PLAY- ERS The fame of an artist is a combination of two assets: artistic recognition and mar- The art games tend to split the art world ket value. Fame is here understood as the up in as many separate playgrounds as there reputation as reflected in the status accord- are assets at stake. On each playground ing to public opinion, at large or in mass there is a separate set of players, namely media; that is, outside the art world. In one those who see that their winning chances are extreme, artists can be famous on account greatest on that particular playground. There of their artistic recognition alone, even if is an artistic or exclusive playground, where they have no market value. In the other artistic recognition is at stake. Its specific extreme, they can be famous because of asset is purely symbolic, and with Bourdieu their market value alone, even without we can call artistic recognition symbolic cap- artistic recognition. These two assets are ital. Symbolic capital gives power to confer the stakes at play in the game of art in most artistic recognition on others, a power that is art worlds. Each player in the game tries to purely symbolic. Besides the artists, the maximize the combined value of his or her most important group of players is the cura- assets. As we shall see below, the art game toriat. The curatoriat consists of the top consists of rules that make combinations ranked museum directors and curators, crit- difficult, or even illegitimate. ics, art historians, gallery owners, freelance curators etc in that part of the art world. The curatoriat controls most of the symbolic cap- ital, and thus wields most of that part of symbolic power - the power to consecrate. 84 There is also a commercial playground capital an added economic value. Symbolic for sales and income, assets which we call capital therefore has a triple value: symbol- commercial capital. In addition to the com- ic, commercial and political, and a corre- mercially oriented artists, the dominating spondingly larger motivating force. group of players is the private or commer- Symbolic capital whitewashes commercial cial galleries - except those few who have capital, and makes government grants become members of the curatoriat. The seem like wise cultural policy. players compete for market shares and for Lesser artists are normally said to be income from sales - commercial capital. influenced by greater artists with symbolic The third field in social democratic capital conferred on them by the curatoriat, countries is the political playground, where not the other way round. democratic and egalitarian considerations are as important as aesthetic ones. The bodies of cultural policy, the network of 7. THE ETHIC OF THE ARTISTIC PLAY- government subsidized galleries and the GROUND artists’ trade unions constitute the major group of players. Often the players do not The ethic of the game on the artistic act individually on this playground, but col- playground is the opposite of what it lectively, because that gives them greater appears to be. The real name of the game bargaining power. Its real asset is political is: the loser wins. From the rules mentioned capital, since goodwill among cultural in § 6, artists learn that artistic recognition, 1. Odd Nerdrum (b.1940) The murder of Andreas bureaucrats and politicians is necessary to with its triple value, can only be attained by Baader, 1977-78, 330 x 270 cm. By the courtecy of make them subsidize culture with the tax- satisfying the demands of the curatoriat - Astrup-Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo. payers money. In return, the players come the group of players that, because of it’s up with projects that are politically interest- own high recognition, commands the great- ing, and thus increase their political capital. est amount of symbolic capital. The curato- riat demands subordination to the doctrine of the new. Only the new are worthy of 6. THE RULES OF THE SYMBOLIC CAPI- artistic recognition, because only the new TAL will be recorded in the art history written by the curatoriat, and thus be given eternal There are some vital rules governing life. The new has no commercial or political the production and distribution of symbolic value until it is given artistic recognition by capital in the art game: the curatoriat. Therefore, the creators of the Only players in the artistic playground, new - the young artists striving for artistic who themselves are artistically recognized, recognition - will always be poor. They work can confer artistic recognition on other play- in non-arts or arts related occupations only ers. to the extent that they can finance their No players can confer more symbolic artistic work from it, and they live modest- capital on others than they have them- ly to save money for their art. selves. That is, in order to give artistic recognition, you have to be artistically rec- ognized yourself, on at least the same level 8. AUTONOMY AND THE CURATORIAT of symbolic capital. Therefore, artists bring their symbolic capital, large or small, to The autonomous work of art has liber- their galleries. And the other way round, ated itself from references to everything galleries confer their symbolic capital on except to itself and to other works of art . the artists they represent. Objects are presented as art that are not art Symbolic capital can be converted into in other contexts than the art world’s. It both commercial and political capital, but depends on commentaries from the curato- the opposite operation is not possible. That riat for being perceived as art. Thus, the is, neither economic success or large gov- autonomous work of art is dependent on ernment subsidies result in artistic recogni- the curatoriat and the exclusive playground. tion. It is the other way round: artistic Its autonomy, therefore, is limited. Odd recognition makes both the government Nerdrum’s paintings are non-autonomous and the market more willing to spend and do not depend on the commentaries of money on the ones that are already sym- the curatoriat in order to be perceived as bolically rewarded. This rule gives symbolic art; they are accessible and of use to any- 85 one, because they look like art. The said to influence or be influenced by other Norwegian curatoriat excluded Nerdrum contemporary artists, because the curatori- ever since his debut, and has continued to at did not consider it contemporary. For this do so for many years. Conflicts of belief reason, Odd Nerdrum’s art was not useful within the curatoriat are resolved by the art for the curatoriat, but dangerous, because it history, written by the grand curatoriat - the threatened both it’s aesthetic, it’s ethic and Greenbergs and MoMas of the curatoriat. it’s symbolic power. The curatoriat called Artists excluded by the curatoriat do not his paintings kitch. They laughed, Nerdrum enter art history - and are not given eternal cried. life. Only a playground that is comparative- ly independent of commercial, religious and 10. THE PLOT political interests, attains autonomy. That is, the curatoriat must be able to make aes- From the first moment in his career, thetic judgements and choices independent Nerdrum has taken a stand for the pre- of economic and political interests.