Together with Vice-speaker of German parliament Antje Vollmer, Helnwein initiates a discussion with the Green Party in German parliament about the so called "degenerate art" in relation to the official art of the 3rd Reich .
This was the first cultural debate of the German Green Party ...

Helnwein visits Arno Breker, Hitler's favorite artist, in his studio in Düsseldorf, and photographs him holding a picture of Joseph Beuys.
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Beginning of the friendship with choreographer/director Johann Kresnik.
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Helnwein meets Michael Jackson in Germany.
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beginning of the friendship with Antje Vollmer, Vice-speaker of German parliament.
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Participates in the exhibition "Selection 4" Polaroid Art of the last 10 years in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and in the "photokina" in Cologne.

Helnwein works simultaneously on a series of large-format, monochromatic-blue, realistic oil and acrylic paintings, as well as on a series of monochrome abstract paintings..

1987 "Helnwein - Der Untermensch", self-portraits from 1970 - 1987, one-man show at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Strasbourg.
Roland Recht, Chief Curator of Museums in Strasbourg, stated: "The Viennese Helnwein is part of a tradition going back to the 18th century, to which Messerschmidt's grimacing sculptures also belong, on which one of Freud's pupils wrote a long treatise.
One sees, too, the common ground of these works with those of Arnulf Rainer or Nitsch, two other Viennese, who display their own bodies in the frame of reference of injury, pain, and death. One can also see this fascination for body language goes back to the expressive gesture in the work of Egon Schiele." ...

Installation and performance (Exhibition-Opera) "Der Untermensch" in the Kunsthalle Bremen.
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At a Helnwein solo show at Freie Volksbühne Berlin, the paintings "Moral" and "Losing Time" are stolen from the exhibition. The works have never been recovered.
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One-man show in the Leopold Hoesch Museum in Düren and in the Villa Stuck in Munich.
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From 1987 to 1989 Helnwein works on a series of pastels.
"Death of Pinocchio" (Der Tod des Pinocchio), "God in Panic" (Gott in Panik), "Modern Sleep", "Burnt Angel" and others ...

May 15, Helnwein's son Wolfgang Amadeus is born.
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Aktion "Gott der Untermenschen".
Performance at camp Kopal of the Austrian army, February, 1987. Helnwein uses tanks and real ammunition ...

Parallel to the large-format, multi-part paintings and the photographic work, Helnwein now also turns to crayon drawings.
"Knabe und Neger" (Boy and Negro),
"Triumph der Wissenschaft" (Triumph of Science),
"Nachgeburt der Venus" (The Afterbirth of Venus),
"Das Lügengebet" (The Prayer of Lies).

One-man show in the Mittelrhein Museum, Koblenz, and in the Freie Volksbühne theatre in Berlin.
Podium discussion "Violence, Sexuality, Antiquity" with Heiner Müller, Hans Neuenfels, Ernest Bornemann and Gottfried Helnwein.

1986 He works on a series of large-format self-portrait metamorphoses, which have their origin in the self-portrait as screaming man blinded by forks.
Start of a series of photographic self-dramatisations using the themes of dying hero, SS man, martyr, sufferer, friend of children, and mummified corpse.
"Gott der Untermenschen" (God of Sub-Humans),
"Das stille Leuchten der Avantgarde" (The Silent Glow of the Avant-Garde),
"Bete Herr, denn wir sind nah!" (Pray, Lord, for We Are Near!),
"Eine Träne auf Reisen" (A Tear on a Journey),
"Der Tod des Expertentums" (The Death of Expertise),
"Partisanenliebe" (Partisan Love),
"Blitzkrieg der Liebe" (Blitzkrieg of Love),
"Geheime Elite" [Secret Elite],
"Gefäss der Leidenschaft" (Vessel of Passion).

1985 One-man show at the Albertina museum, Vienna.
Catalogue with texts by Walter Koschatzky and Peter Gorsen ...

In Germany, he radically changes his way of working and now begins a series of large-format paintings consisting of several parts (diptychs, triptychs, poliptychs).
In doing so he combines photo-murals with abstract gestural and monochrome painting in oil and acrylic, also using reproductions of Caspar David Friedrich paintings and war documentary photographs. He assembles these to form what the critic Peter Gorsen calls "Bilderstrassen" (picture lanes). In doing this, Helnwein closely examines taboo subject matters and tackles terms such as "Untermensch" (sub-human), "entartete Kunst" (degenerate art), "lebensunwertes Leben" (life unworthy of life). ...

Helnwein acquires a medieval castle close to Cologne and the Rhine-river, where he lives and works untlil his move to Ireland in 1997.
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