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The exhibition Angels Sleeping is a thematic cross-section, predominantly of the painting work of the Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein. The five sections of the exhibition present the fundamental circuits of Helnwein’s work. The introduction comprises heads – faces, including the artist’s iconic self-portrait, painfully acute metaphors of the limits on freedom of expression in Austria in the 1970s and 80s. The artist’s merciless approach to the residues of the Nazi past of his country is a further theme, developed in monochrome, hyperrealistic painting. The central and still extremely relevant theme of Helnwein’s work however is das malträtierte Kind, the child exposed to suffering. The author engages with this theme in various positions from his early works from the 1970s up to the present day. His collection of works on this theme is given the largest space. Violence committed against children, in contrast with their passive exposure, distressed astonishment and impossibility of defending themselves against the world of adults is partially shifted into a further position, ironically entitled Art in Amerika. This presents the relationships of the white, frequently uniformed “majority” to other ethnic groups and minorities, particularly in the United States, sharpened by the photographic precision of the images. ...

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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The drama of Amstetten throws the light on a crime that happens behind the facades of apparently respectable families. This painting of the Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein expresses the anguish of the child's soul. The artist, who lives in Ireland, called this watercolor fom the 70s "Song I".
Helnwein's whole work thematizes pain, injury and violence of and against children. ...

Amstetten between discomposure and media-hype: A dungeon amidst the town, a father inflicting martyrdom onto his children - how we struggle to put the pieces of the incomprehensible together.
The dungeon in Amstetten touches something deep inside the marrow of the Austrians, their dark side, mirrored in the poems of their authors and in the Images of Gottfried Helnwein, depicting people with forkes pusched into their eyes. Or Girls with blood running down their legs. Helnwein's paintings are nightmares, they tell of of the dungeons in our heads... ...

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. ...