Gottfried Helnwein Info

His early work consists mainly of hyper-realistic watercolors, depicting wounded children, as well as performances - often with children - in public spaces. Helnwein is a conceptual artist, concerned primarily with psychological and sociological anxiety, historical issues and political topics. As a result of this, his work is often considered provocative and controversial.
Helnwein's subject matter involves the complexities of the human condition. His disturbing yet provocative images of physically and emotionally wounded children have been seen as metaphors for larger global issues. He portrays the innocence of adolescence against the backdrop of historical events like the Holocaust to highlight the fragility of humanity in an unstable world.

Born in Austria (1948), Helnwein now lives between Ireland and the USA and has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the U.S. In an internationally acclaimed career, which has spanned over 30 years, Helnwein has produced work in a range of media including painting, drawing, photography, performance, large-scale public installations, set design and film. Well known for his provocative imagery, Helnwein's earlier work referenced Nazi Europe. Major exhibitions of Helnwein's work have been held worldwide, most recently at the Lentos Museum of Modern Art, Linz and at The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

— eine Zahl, die im Vergleich zu einer Ausstellung des Künstlers in San Francisco (130.000 Gäste) weiteres Potenzial verheißt. Für 2006 ist Stella Rollig, die Direktorin des Lentos Museums gegenüber dem VOLKSBLATT zuversichtlich, mit ihrem Programm den Helnwein-Erfolg durchaus fortsetzen zu können, vor allem mit der internationalen Architekturausstellung mit allen Stars der Szene.

"Meine Arbeit wird in erster Linie durch den Verfall der menschlichen Gesellschaft, inspiriert der Dekadenz des urbanen Lebens, dem sogenannten Untergang des Abendlandes. Das ist mein Thema. Deswegen ist Los Angeles, für mich auch der ideale Ort für mein Arbeit. Die Stadt ist wie eine offene Wunde, Ich habe den Eindruck, dass man hier den augenblicklichen, tatsächlichen Zustand der westlichen Welt klarer sehen kann, als sonst irgendwo. Aus irgendeinem Grund versucht hier gar niemand dieses Chaos zu regulieren oder irgendetwas an der Situation zu kaschieren."
Gottfried Helnwein

On Saturday, after five solid years together and a full year's engagement (with a 7-carat antique European round-cut diamond ring to prove it), Marilyn Manson and Dita von Teese got married in front of 60 celebrity friends, including the likes of Lisa Marie Presley and CSI's Eric Szmanda. The event occurred over several days in and around a castle in County Tipperary, Ireland. Castle Gurteen, home of the couple's friend, Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein, was said to have been lit by the great-grandchildren of Hitler's architect, Albert Speers. And Manson had promised "children in makeup, dressed in these wonderful 19th century outfits, serving absinthe frappe."

Vom 19. Juni bis 2. Oktober 2005 zeigte die Ludwig Galerie Schloss Oberhausen mit den Kinderbildern das zentrale Thema des umstrittenen Künstlers. Und auch mit dieser Ausstellung überschritt Helnwein erneut Grenzen und polarisierte, indem er das Kind nicht als unschuldiges und liebenswertes, sondern als verletztes, entblößtes, gedemütigtes und misshandeltes Wesen darstellt.

For the portraits in Sehnsucht, the Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein photographed the musicians in facial bandages, their lips and eyes stretched wide apart by hideous medical instruments. There is an echo of Trakl, again, in these "cold metal straps." But it is unreasonable, the musicians protest, to think that images such as this might evoke obscene historical memories. "It's just reverse discrimination because we are German," says Lorenz. "If we were Spanish or Dutch, there would be no problem."

Head of a Child III (2002)In vielen großformatigen Werken setzt er sich mit der Misshandlung von Kindern auseinander - nun hat der österreichische Multi-Media-Künstler Gottfried Helnwein die erste Einzelausstellung seiner Werke in einem amerikanischen Museum erhalten. Unter dem Titel "The Child: Works by Gottfried Helnwein" zeigt die "Legion of Honor" in San Francisco Gemälde, Zeichnungen und Fotografien von den 1970er Jahren bis zur Gegenwart.

Barks may be history's most widely read anonymous storyteller. When he wrote and drew the Donald Duck comic books in the 1950s, they had an estimated monthly readership of more than 10 million, and the only real person's name that appeared on the comic was Walt Disney. The lovingly drawn stories, encompassing uproarious comedy and rousing adventure, also expanded Donald's one-note animated-cartoon personality and introduced Donald's magnificent skinflint uncle, Scrooge McDuck.

The Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein is well aware of the discomfort the public feels when confronted with images of children not represented as innocents but to whom a powerful sexual identity (and an awareness) is designated. In his work, and especially his paper drawings, he has created some of the most powerful and disturbing representations of abused childhood in history of art. We are not talking about the form of abuse commonly described in the penal code. By altering or removing the inbred pulsation that spurs us to stubbornly refuse or deny what we do not recognise, the manipulations and interferences (The Intrusion) adults perform on the social body of childhood are denounced.