Cover: Portrait by Gottfried Helnwein ...

"I don't spend money on coke or whores." deadpans Kevin Smith. "And I am not a big car guy with a fleet of Ferraris or anything like that. But I can get behind an indulgence like this."
The indulgence in question is towering a nine-foot-tall canvas of Smith's daughter, Harley, which hangs in the entry of his Hollywood home.
Smith commissioned the portrait two years ago from Austrian Artist Gottfried Helnwein, who is best known for his dark, noir-style paintings.
Smith admittedly wept when he finally received the work, which has since become his pride and joy - a family heirloom that is a testament to his love for his child as well as being a serious work of art. ...

A highly satisfying survey of his work at the Legion of Honor museum titled "The Child" was dominated by images of children, as was a current exhibition of his more recent work at Modernism. ...

Austrian artist Gottfriend Helnwein's large mixed media portrait of a little girl faces the gallery's entrance. The press release states, "[Helnwein's] images intend to evoke associations with mutilation, anguish or internal alienation ... his paintings blatantly put forward images that border the line of social unacceptability and comment on the results of post Second World War society." ...

In 1980, Modernism became the first gallery on the West Coast to show Russian avant-garde art, and is one of only two galleries in the nation that continue to exhibit such works today.
Muller, through gallery shows, has helped build the careers of American realist painter John Register, sociopolitical conceptual artist Gottfried Helnwein, social portraitist Robert Crumb and narrative painter Mark Stock, to name a few.
Muller has also helped with exhibitions at Bay Area museums such as Helnwein's challenging show, "The Child," the Palace of the Legion of Honor last August. ...

MADRID, SPAIN.
- This is the biggest ever exhibition devoted to the life of the ultimate screen icon, Marilyn Monroe - Life of a Legend. Showcasing more than 250 works from over 70 famous artists and renowned photographers. As a tribute to her lasting popularity this extraordinary exhibition charts every stage of the bittersweet story of Monroe's life and career. Works on display include well-known pieces by renowned artists such as Andy Warhol, Allan Jones, Peter Blake, Richard Avedon, Gottfried Helnwein and Henri Cartier-Bresson, as well as previously unseen works by Conny Holthusen, Antonio de Felipe, José de Guimares and Ernesto Tatafiore. ...

...On the other hand, two large faces - Gottfried Helnwein's Head of a Child and Richard Phillips' Brandbild (Sunburn) - hold our gaze, as they gaze at us, though I'm not sure just what they say about that state between whatever and whatever, be it heaven and hell, action and inaction, or plain old fretful stasis. ...

TEMPE, ARIZONA.- The Arizona State University Art Museum will present The Other Mainstream: Selections from the Collection of Mikki and Stanley Weithorn, January 22 - April 23, 2005. A dynamic selection of works from the collection of Mikki and Stanley Weithorn, "The Other Mainstream" shows their ongoing commitment to social and political issues and artists of color. ...

Beginning November 3 the gallery showcases recent paintings by Gottfried Helnwein. A Swiss-born artist whose work spans a broad spectrum of media, Helnwein was strongly influenced by the dark, devastated world he perceived as a child in post–World War II Europe. His imagery is haunting and his draftsmanship impeccable, inviting a closer look in spite of often chilling subject matter. Helwein’s paintings will remain on view through December 23. ...

TOP 10
The Gottfried Helnwein exhibition "The Child" at the Palace of the Legion of Honor (San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, July) was chosen as the most important show of a contemporary artist in 2004.
"In the first of two shows (the other at the Modernism Gallery in November), Helnwein's large format, photo-realist images of children of various demeanors boldly probed the subconscious. Innocence, sexuality, victimization and haunting self-possession surge and flicker in Helnwein's unnerving work." ...

Do you have any art in your home?
- Gottfried Helnwein I own. I have a few pieces of his from his recent L.A. series. We ultimately ended up working together on a video project for Peter Gabriel [“The Barry Williams Show”]. Some things that are familiar lose their gravity after time. When someone like him makes the familiar so continually provocative, you can find a deepening appreciation for something. ...

Adults bring a trunkful of contradictory cultural baggage to any representations of children. That's what makes the work of Helnwein so powerful. In his show, "The Child," at the Legion of Honor (of the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums), deformed infants and bandaged children stir feelings of pity, defiance and uneasiness about exploitation. There's an ambiguously disturbing painting of a girl aiming a gun into an open refrigerator and another of a bare-breasted mother and child surrounded by Aryan soldiers.
But the most haunting images may be the ones of children who seem strangely oblivious to the adult gaze. Some of Helnwein's children peer right past the onlooker. Others sleep, dreaming of anything but us behind their silky eyelids. And some, like the enormous, half- shadowed "Head of a Child" at the Legion, see straight through us with cloudless, infinite blue eyes.
Steven Winn, San Francisco Chronicle, 17. November 2004
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California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. さてさて。旅行記めいたものを書きますと長くなり、途中でやめてしまうことが多いので、今回の旅行の中で印象に残った点を、つらつらと書いてみたいと思います。ゴットフリード・ヘルンウｪイン（Gottfried Helnwein）。この片仮名表記で合ってるかどうかわかりませんが。オーストリア人アーティストです。現在のコンテンポラリーでは、彼の作品展「The Child」が開催されていました。 ...

While tracking down alligators, Mr. Penn discusses the state of affairs in Hollywood and Washington. ...

"...When I look at a work of Art I ask myself: does it challenge me, does it touch, move or inspire me? Do I learn something from it, does it startle or amaze me - do I get excited, upset?
That is the test any artwork has to pass: can it create an emotional impact on a human being even when he has no education or any information about art? I’ve always had a problem with art that you can only understand if you have a degree in art history, and I have a problem with theories in general. Most of them are bullshit anyway. Most critics and theorists have little respect for artists, and I think the importance of theory in art is totally overrated. Real art is self-evident. Real art is intense, challenging, enchanting, exciting and unsettling; it has a quality and magic that you cannot explain. Like the Blues, a poem of Rimbaud or Rembrandt's late self-portraits. Art is not logic, and if you really want to experience it, your mind and rational thinking will be of little help. Art is something spiritual that you can only experience with your senses, your heart, your soul. Think of Bob Dylan, Hendrix, Mozart, Howling Wolf, Goya, Bukowski or Robert Crumb - do you need to know the theories that some busybodies might attach to their art in order to experience it?
Marcel Duchamp said: "The work of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from the bipolar action gives birth to something - like electricity."
These two poles is all you need. ...

Her lips are parted and colored a luscious deep red. The pancake makeup on her face gives off a marble-white glow. A jacket, adorned with braided gold epaulets at the shoulders, yawns open, exposing a wide expanse of skin down her chest. She appears to be about 8 years old.
There was a time, not so long ago, when the subject of Gottfried Helnwein's new, large-format digital prints at San Francisco's Modernism Gallery might have alarmed or even scandalized a viewer. Not anymore -- or at least not so reflexively...
Adults bring a trunkful of contradictory cultural baggage to any representations of children. That's what makes the work of Helnwein so powerful. In his show, "The Child," at the Legion of Honor, deformed infants and bandaged children stir feelings of pity, defiance and uneasiness about exploitation. There's an ambiguously disturbing painting of a girl aiming a gun into an open refrigerator and another of a bare-breasted mother and child surrounded by Aryan soldiers.
But the most haunting images, here and across town at Modernism, may be the ones of children who seem strangely oblivious to the adult gaze. Some of Helnwein's children peer right past the onlooker. Others sleep, dreaming of anything but us behind their silky eyelids. And some, like the enormous, half- shadowed "Head of a Child" at the Legion, see straight through us with cloudless, infinite blue eyes. ...

"Ninth November Night" documents Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein's sprawling 1988 art installation recalling the horrors of the Holocaust -- and the exhibit's defacement by vandals shortly after it was unveiled.
Directed by Henning Lohner and featuring on-camera appearances by Helnwein collectors Sean Penn and Jason Lee, the documentary short is largely the product of the passion and persistence of Malibu producer Gisela Guttman. When she struggled to find a venue in Los Angeles willing to show Helnwein's large-scale installation, she decided to make a documentary instead.
The art installation, which revolves around a series of pictures of small children, was vandalized after its initial showing in Germany.
"The one thing I wanted to do is just be sure that people can see the entire installation, I just really wanted to bring it to Los Angeles, no matter how," Guttman said. "The power of those images really comes across on-screen, and that's what I wanted people to see and to think about." ...

"Ninth November Night," the Holocaust remembrance documentary which debuted in Malibu last August in its New Malilbu Theatre engagement to qualify for Academy Award consideration, will be a featured entry in the AFI Film Festival Saturday (Nov. 13) and Sunday (Nov. 14.)
Produced by Malibu artist and curator Gisela Guttman with director/composer Henning Lohner, the film concerns Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein's lifelong dedication to artworks perpetuating awareness of Holocaust attrocities.
The documentary recently was a prize-winner at the Ojai Film Festival and is invited to the Nagoya Film Festival to be held next June as part of the World Expo in Japan as well as to the Calgary (Canada) Festival which honors films of humanitarian outreach. ...

Winging in from far-off and far-out corners of the world: German artist Gottfried Helnwein (here for the opening of "Modern Sleep'' at Modernism Gallery); actress Winona Ryder, who'd just landed at SFO from La-La land; and from the Gold Coast, Ann Getty and Jo Schuman Silver, popping by after a trunk show Ann hosted for Alyssa Boothby's Cracquer Jacque jewelry. ...

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Dance icon Gregor Seyffert, and Gottfried Helnwein, internationally renowned artist and stage designer, came up with a highly intelligent concept for the oratorio, which relied heavily on dance, but also comprised whatever means a modern, multimedia stage design might offer. Consequently, the audience’s eyes almost popped out of their heads. With all the media activities, one might almost forget the enchanting, beautiful music, and singing.

Storming, unceasing applause by an enthusiastic Düsseldorf audience for an evening which is unlikely to be easily forgotten. This was an example of lively music theatre, which, unchallenged, not only stole the glory of Deutsche Oper am Rhein, which presently enjoys a period of profound hibernation, but proved that Düsseldorf may well offer first class art. Why not more often?
(Peter Bilsing) ...