Nir Hod
Collected under the title Genius, Hod’s many portraits of “precocious and portentous” children scowl in mutual distaste, each holding a lit cigarette. Their expression, he suggests, is that shared by all history’s geniuses, those wearied by the dim wits of others and destined for a life of lonely superiority. “All of them have the same expression, of something very bitter,” the artist told Interview Magazine in 2013. “It’s bitter because they have this kind of knowledge that they cannot share. They don’t have the time or energy to deal with other people.” He added, as afterthought, “I noticed just last week Robert Hughes looks exactly like this.” Only Robert Hughes never dressed to Baroque excess, was never lent a Rococo glow (though he was a smoker, and presumably a child once too). Kitsch and melancholic, the portraits offer a strange vision of childhood; self-possessed and possessed of adult scorn. Here, a ‘genius’ with quaffed hair and fur-trimmed coat appraises the viewer with apparent disdain, their cigarette denoting – if only to the artist – the sign of savant.
b.1970, Tel Aviv
A self-described narcissist, Nir Hod is given to speaking about himself with melodramatic phrasing. “I am the star of my art,” he says with rakish confidence. “Through my art, I wish to prove my love for my mother.” Later: “The more I revive things, the more I kill them.” Then: “I am in love with my work, it drives me wild.” It is unclear, however, whether or not he is sincere in his pronouncements. In studio, Hod plays the part of both artist and muse, admirer and admired. Naming his thematic concerns, he lists beauty, destruction, glamour, death and seduction, which together read like the plot points of so many Hollywood films. That he champions emotional decadence in all things is perhaps not surprising. Though Hod works across mediums, he is best known for his paintings and limited-edition coasters. Titled The Night You Left, his glass coasters (available in sets of four) feature lines of white powder – but no, the work isn’t about cocaine, the artist says, but rather nostalgia, “about memory, because as a memory, so many things are beautiful.” Hod is a hopeless romantic, sentimental to the point of satire.