POUGHKEEPSIE, NY.- Today, the body you were born with is no longer a “fixed” entity. In our appearance-obsessed society, people can change the physical contours of their bodies in a myriad of ways. Now, a bold new exhibition at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center will explore the modern human form as it is imagined – by contemporary artists.
Out of Shape: Stylistic Distortions of the Human Form in Art from the Logan Collection is drawn from one of the most prominent private collections of international contemporary art in the United States. Many of the artists whose works Vicki (Vassar class of 1968) and Kent Logan have collected are known for depictions of the human form that explore issues of psychological identity, and that reinvent figuration as a conceptual tool. ...

I have seldom seen injustice presented so directly and so well as a subject of fine art. The work of Leon Golub comes to mind, whose extravagant visions of contemporary torture are so chilling, in part because they exhibit with beautiful painting the smiling indifference of the torturers. Gottfried Helnwein paints views of sadistic punishment with the care and precision of a latter-day Vermeer. Robert Capa and Gerda Taro photograph the Spanish Civil War with the emotional intensity of Goya. Goya himself, whose paintings and prints — in a book of his etchings entitled The Disasters of War, published posthumously in 1863 — depict so effectively the savagery of guerilla warfare. ...

“I did a fairly major restoration and paint job on the front, but to be honest, there wasn’t too much about the interior to get excited about,” says the London native, an avid modern-art collector. “The previous owner lived here for over 30 years. I had to strip away three layers of old wall coverings to expose the original brick”­—now hung with a museum-wing’s worth of photography by Todd Hido and Lucas’ ex-girlfriend Elena Dorfman, a haunting multimedia canvas by Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein called I Walk Alone and a humorous “wallpapered” self-portrait by local artist Tim Sullivan. “It was really dark and filthy,” recalls Lucas. “Now, it’s open and warm.” ...

Un iperrealismo perturbante e sconvolgente è la marca di Gottfried Helnwein, pittore, fotografo e performer austriaco che mi era sconosciuto fino a ieri e che ho scoperto attraverso Stumble. Non sapevo neanche che fosse lui l’uomo che sta dietro a “The Golden Age of Grotesque”, progetto multimediale di Marilyn Manson e, a dire il vero, a prima vista, i suoi acquerelli li avevo scambiati per fotografie. ...

Así, Belén Blanco que tiene fama de ser seria y distante, y que con sus poco más de 30 años tiene una carrera apoyada en importantes trabajos tanto en cine, como en televisión y en teatro (sin duda, un punto alto en éste género fue su Kleines Helnwein ), se encontró con Nazareno Casero, que luego de sus alocadas participaciones infantiles en el programa de su padre, Cha cha cha , cuando tenía apenas siete años, probó con la tele en distintas facetas de conductor y actor, y con el cine hasta que definitivamente asombró con su trabajo en Crónica de una fuga . Y entonces, aquellos que parecían tan diferentes ya no lo son tanto. ...

Nicola Costantino creates a bleak operating room reminiscent of the French film Delicatessen. Maybe the Troglodist characters from the movie help in understanding Costantino's nod to Gottfried Helnwein? ...

Im ersten Halbjahr 2006 habe das Lentos noch 50.000 Besucher verbuchen können, im Vergleichzeitraum dieses Jahres seien es nur mehr 25.000 gewesen, heißt es in einem Artikel der Zeitung "Heute". Der kaufmännische Direktor des Museums, Gernot Barounig, bestätigte die Zahlen. Sie seien aber deshalb so krass ausgefallen, weil im ersten Halbjahr 2006 ein "Riesen-Erfolg" - eine Schau von Gottfried Helnwein - verbucht werden konnte. ...

Two generations of art provocateurs discuss tortured saints, world wars, and the unbearable lightness of being normal. ...

MARILYN Manson's unheated Californian pile features mounted baboon heads; a lithograph, Epiphany 1 (Adoration of the Magi) by Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein, depicting the baptism of a Nazi Christ (Helnwein also shot the cover of Manson's fifth album, The Golden Age of Grotesque); and a Joachim Luetke sculpture Homunculus (a baby with chicken feet for hands and the lower body of a caterpillar). On a table, the anonymous aborted fetus in formaldehyde given to him as "a beautiful morbid gift" by his ex-wife, burlesque diva Dita von Teese. ...

Den berühmtesten Theaterplakatskandal der alten Bundesrepublik löste einst "Die Vereinigung Deutschsprachiger Bürgerinitiativen zum Schutz der Menschenwürde in Deutschland, Frankreich, Holland, Italien, Luxemburg, Österreich und Schweiz" aus. Dieses sprachliche Menschenrechtsverbrechen erstattete 1988 Strafanzeige bei der Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg gegen ein Plakat, das Gottfried Helnwein für Peter Zadeks Inszenierung "Lulu" im Deutschen Schauspielhaus entworfen hatte. Es zeigte einen kleinwüchsigen Mann, der einer Frau in den entblößten Schritt blickt. Die Debatte darüber, ob das "Pornografie" sei, beschäftige die Feuilletons lange, denn Zadek stand im Zenit seines Ruhms, und Hamburg war noch die Pressemetropole schlechthin. ...