...Helnwein opens up"Nighthawks" to closer iconographic inspection, exposing the symbolic meanings of the painting to cement its position as a landmark of twentieth-century anti-urbanism. ...

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cover: "Head of a Child 4"
inside: "Head of a Child 5" 2000, oil and acrylic on canvas,
and "Ninth of November Night", 1988, installation at the Museum Ludwig, cologne ...

`The Portrait Obscured,'' the current exhibit at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, where 19 artists have all but forgone the portrait entirely in their pursuit of it.
The exhibit's signature pieces are two paintings by the Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein.
A bit of perceptual sleight of hand, two seemingly blue-black canvases on close inspection reveal portraits of John Lennon and Bruce Lee.
Portraits obscured, to be sure, and perhaps a meditation on how unknowable are the famous by their famous faces. ...

...or how about odd nerdrum...or gottfried helnwein if you just wanna talk about paint handling these two are far superior...and perhaps being a child of a "ironic culture" has something to do with you liking the paintings...perhaps me being a child of a violent one has something to do with not liking them...
I understand the subjectivity in art but I was hoping we'd stop breeding new "quirku" warhols ...

The common or garden tie doesn't tend to throw up too many fashion conundrums for the casual wearer. The options are pretty simple; classic and understated or loud and hey, wacky!
But not anymore: thanks to London-based fashion terrorists, Cultural Ties, all that is about to change with a range of neckties, featuring specially commissioned work from over 80 contemporary artists. Now the sartorially discerning can choose from pink bunnies (Jeff Koons), naked ladies (Paola Gandolfi), amorphous freaks (Gottfried Helnwein) and satanic messages (David Shrigley) to mention a few.

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How can one recount the Holocaust? That is certainly one of the major questions confronting any writer who tries to write on this theme. How is one to transform the horrific and inconceivable reality into fiction? How can one create a feeling of aunthenticity in the reader? How to disturb his emotional world without resorting to sentimental manipulation and how to avoid banality? ...

Q:How can you explain the artistic cruelty of your cover art works? Why is there so much pain and suffering on them? Where is the border between art and cruelty?
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A:We like to arise controversies and that is why already on the second album we decided to choose the photographs of Helnwein for our cover artwork. We really like his attitude towards art and the way he showed us. It turned out that a band picture can be something different, a real art, and not just another common, boring shot of a few people. ...

A controversial "Nazi" image by artist Gottfried Helnwein was daubed with red paint last week as Kilkenny Arts Festival entered its final days. Another Helnwein print, of a local girl, was set on fire and extensively damaged.