A virtuoso and a visionary with one eye behind the veil of the world, the other reflecting endless horror, beauty, loss, humour and melancholy - all with a steady hand. The position is supreme, the means are penetrating and the message as deep as it gets. To me the strange silent directness in Helnweins work is unrivaled, no other artist today tells the dim story of the world in a more disturbing and moving way. His work, views and perspectives are completely congruent and appeals to me in a very direct and personal way. ...

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- five reasons to have a party! Young Patrons will host a series of Fall events, serving up famed artists from the Arkansas Arts Center Collection. ...

Ausstellungskatalog

Aucune disposition d'âme n'a occupé si longtemps l'Occident. Les Grecs l'appelaient la bile noire (melangkholia, qui donnera le mot mélancolie). Aristote s'étonnait que cette humeur réputée néfaste touche la plupart des hommes d'exception. Elle est par tradition cause de souffrance et de folie, et sa désignation comme "maladie sacrée" implique une dualité. Les artistes de l'Antiquité la représentèrent sous la forme d'êtres pensifs, tête inclinée posée sur la main, regard perdu où se devine une sourde douleur. Au fil des siècles, l'image du mélancolique changera peu - 'le Portrait du Dr Gachet', de Van Gogh, ou la sculpture hyperréaliste de l'Australien Ron Mueck ('Big Man', 2000) respectent cette iconographie. Devenue saturnienne, puis reclassée dans la grande famille des dépressions, la mélancolie a toujours inspiré les artistes qui, pour en être victimes dans les périodes de doute et d'impuissance, connaissent son charme mortifère. Avec plus de 200 oeuvres, l'exposition se propose de vous introduire à cette richesse encore mal connue et met en évidence le rôle essentiel joué par la mélancolie dans les différentes formes de la création artistique en Europe, de Dürer à Goya en passant par Bruegel, Bosh, Arcimboldo, Watteau, La Tour, Füssli, Delacroix, Rodin, Munch, Baudelaire, Artaud, De Chirico, Picasso, Hopper... ...

The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey presents the exhibition Austrian Contemporary Art and Post-war Painting: The Essl Collection, a seminal encounter with the most commanding pictorial propositions engendered in the second half of the 2Oth century.
Gottfried Helnwein digresses from fleeting contemplation with his Self-portrait: the canvas on display prompts an immediate, impulsive reaction... ...

Die Ludwiggalerie im Schloß Oberhausen mag bereits die zweite Präsentationsstätte von Gottfried Helnweins Ausstellung "Beautiful Children" sein, doch sie ist erste Wahl, was die Präsentation betrifft. In den großen Räumen verteilen sich rund drei Dutzend Werke, darunter eine kleine Auswahl von "Klassikern" der siebziger Jahre des vergangenen Jahrhunderts, als der Wiener Maler mit seinen typisch deformierten oder verbundenen Gesichtern bekannt wurde, und Reprisen älterer Schlüsselwerke wie etwa die in ihrer Brutalität berückend originalgetreue Micky Maus ("Midnight Mickey"), die hier in einer Version aus dem Jahr 2001 vertreten ist.
Doch das sind Bilder, die längst in die popkulturelle Walhalla eingegangen sind. Deshalb ist es erfreulich, daß diese erste größere deutsche Einzelausstellung seit vielen Jahren den Schwerpunkt eindeutig auf neue Projekte legt: auf "The Golden Age" etwa, wo der Popstar Marilyn Manson in wechselnden Masken das Modell für Helnweins Kamera abgibt ...

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Austrian born artist Gottfried Helnwein so often finds himself in the eye of the storm, it must feel like home. He is known for highly charged paintings and photographs of suffering children, Nazi themes, and then also magnificent bucolic landscapes. His fans outnumber his detractors, though, and he has won many admirers and collectors both in his adoptive home of Los Angeles, and around the world. Among them, California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenneger, actor Sean Penn, and musician Marilyn Manson, who is a frequent subject.
He identifies strongly with the oppressed, and society's most vulnerable members: children. "When I see how kids grow up , how they are neglected and mistreated , how they get polluted with drugs, junk food, insane television and bad schools, it's terrible, - and dangerous, because they are our future. Children are sacred - we need to protect, support and encourage them." ...

After further examining his work on my computer, I left . . . heart racing several beats faster, fingers tingling. Helnwein reminded me how to feel. It was like the first time I saw a Fellini film or slipped into Tom Ford attire. There was a sense of confidence instilled, a confidence in being human, the confidence to find power through mistake, the confidence to admit to cease yearning for perfection. Rather, redefining perfection to the state of recognizing my humanity, my possibility. ...