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. ...

EDWARD HOPPER is too easily taken for granted: taciturn Yankee poet of shadow and light, capable of converting a New England manse into a Fortress of Solitude; voyeuristic stage designer of lonely apartments, a frustrated voluptuary; auteur of the diner reverie "Nighthawks," which not long ago was probably better known via Gottfried Helnwein's travesty "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." ...

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 show features a moving and disturbing cast of artists, including the international hyper-realist painter and high-life art star Gottfried Helnwein of Ireland and the unpretentious, almost clinical print-maker, German-born American Kiki Smith of New York City. Others in the show include Cristin Millet of Philadelphia, Diana Falchuk of Seattle, Japanese-born Chiharu Shiota of Berlin and James R. Southard of Louisville. All have an interest in the transience of life and its cultural mysteries. ...