Some might think that Los Angeles - its unrelenting sun, its one-step-away-from-reality perch -- is an incongruous place for someone like Helnwein. What he creates, regardless the medium - watercolor, oil, photography, performance art, sculpture - is a thorny psychological excursion into our sublimated self, our obscured corners and dark humors. His explorations into war crimes, Catholicism, disfigurement and the Holocaust are both unflinching and surgical. His work is in museum collections around the world, including those of LACMA and the Smithsonian, and critics have labeled it grotesque, fearless, disturbing and "veer[ing] dangerously close to offensive." People are surprised, he says, when they discern that he doesn't "seem insane." ...

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Amstetten zwischen Fassungslosigkeit und Medienrummel: Ein Verlies mitten im Ort, ein Vater, der den Kindern ein Martyrium antut - wie man nun die Teile von etwas Unbegreiflichem zusammenzufügen versucht.
Das Verlies von Amstetten berührt auch etwas im Innersten der Österreicher, ihre dunkle Seite, die sich spiegelt in den Gedichten ihrer Autoren. Und in den Bildern von Gottfried Helnwein, wo Menschen zu sehen sind, denen Gabeln in die Augen gedrückt werden. Oder Mädchen, denen das Blut die Beine herunterläuft. Helnweins Bilder sind Albträume, sie handeln von Verliesen in den Köpfen... ...

9 Gottfried Helnwein ...

Various themes and concerns are explored by the artists including gender, social, and ethnic identity perception of the self (Su-en Wong); distortions of scale (Eisenman and Philips); use of cartoon or highly stylized imagery (Wesley, Ali, Fujita, Ofili); utilizing the superhero image (Warhol and Ramos); revisiting the Surreal figure (Tyson, Dingle, Quinn, Gormley); composite images of fictional characters (Kauper, Yuskavage, Currin, Lijun, Schütte); emotionally charged faces and forms (Flannigan, Gottfried Helnwein); a twisted notion of reality that reflects a dark world view (McLane, Middlebrook); images of the human form moving through time and space (Herring, Nauman); and the spirit of Neo-expressionism (Clemente, Brown). ...

Helnwein was deeply influenced by the Holocaust, as well as by popular cultural references like comics and rock music. His imagery is unsettling, dark, and deeply compelling, carrying powerful messages of political disturbance and social unease. ...

"Finally we are living now in a society that is a combination of what Huxley foresaw in his "Brave new World" and Orwell in his "1984". We are caught in a stream of constant propaganda and we are under total surveillance. This is the Age of materialism, consumerism and decadence. Our heroes are idiots like trash-princess Paris Hilton, in their sad 15 minutes of fame. Children are shooting other children in schools before they kill themselves and in other parts of the world they blow themselves up in the middle of crowds.
Doesn't that look like the end of a civilization, the second fall of Rome?" ...

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Хельнвайн: Позвольте мне объяснить, почему я стал использовать эти образы в своих работах – это намного проще, чем вы можете подумать.
Мое искусство – это непрерывный диалог, который я начал 30 лет назад со своими зрителями. С раннего детства у меня было ощущение, что мир, в котором я жил, напоминает сумасшедший дом. Казалось, ничего не имело смысла. Окружающие люди, особенно взрослые, которые вроде бы должны быть примером, вели себя чрезвычайно странно. Казалось, что все запутались в сети негласных правил и законов. Я постоянно спрашивал себя – как я оказался тут? Что я тут делаю? Единственное, что я понимал – окружающий мир не был моим домом, я не чувствовал себя в нем «своим». Кто я тогда? Откуда? Очевидно я был в состоянии полной амнезии. Казалось, что я застрял в мрачном плоском мире – дешевом немом черно-белом кино с замедленной перемоткой. Я тогда еще не знал, что родился в Вене сразу после второй из мировых войн, которые мои глупые предки вели предыдущие 30 лет – и проиграли. ...

Nach "Das Rheingold/Die Walküre" im Opernhaus Bonn, folgt in der Spielzeit 2007/2008 "Siegfried/Die Götterdämmerung" als zweiter Teil. Bühne und Kostüme aller 4 Teile des "Ring des Nibelungen" sind von Gottfried Helnwein gestaltet. ...

Vicki and Kent Logan hosting a dinner at their home in honor of Gottfried Helnwein. ...

Without doubt I was under the spell of Gottfried Helnwein, the final speaker of the excellent DAM Contemporaries artist lecture series (December 13th, 2007). His incantation began before I had even heard him speak, after seeing his twisted photorealistic infant Hitler-Christ child and mother Mary interrogated by the Nazi SS (1996 "Epiphany, Adoration of the Magi," part of the Radar show earlier this year at the DAM.) The artist himself noted that "hardly any other painting created so much emotional response" as Epiphany I (he created 2 other works in the series). ...

In memory of Francisco de Goya ...

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FIGURES OF DESIRE: fantasies of identification, disguises or transformations, social roles in construction of gender and sexuality. ...

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But what does the hyper-realism of Austrian-born, Irish-based artist Gottfried Helnwein say to us and about us in the context of "Body Anxious"? His work is what puts this show on the map of bodily pain and anxiety. He has painted a hyper-realistic, oversized portrait of a little girl in a pink-and-white undershirt, her head and eyes swathed in gauze so recently wrapped that it glistens with blood. It is from Helnwein's "Los Caprichos" series, named after the famous Goya series. Art historians say Goya's "Caprichos" mark the beginning of the modern world of art because they were the first to look at, rather than avoid or symbolize, pain, fantasy, cruelty, disloyalty and any other number of grievous human traits. ...

The exhibit will explore the intersection of art, the body, and medical procedures, with the implicit fear of bodily pain (real or imagined) as a major theme. The human body is vulnerable and mortal, yet it is also the biological basis of human existence. "Body Anxious" includes works by artists from around the world, in, often, unconventional media, who examine the anxieties associated with medical procedures and instruments, and other experiences that remind us of our shared precarious biological condition.
Artists include: Gottfried Helnwein, Kiki Smith, Diana Falchuk, James R. Southard, Drew Sellers, Cristin Millet and Chiharu Shiota. ...

A special emphasis has been placed on the acquisition of photography, with important works by Carleton Watkins, Lewis Carroll, Imogen Cunningham, Diane Arbus and Gottfried Helnwein on display.
(Gottfried Helnwein, William S. Burroughs 1990, 99 cm x 66 cm, silver print) ...