..A clarity of vision in his subject matter was emerging in Helnwein's art that was to stay consistent throughout his career. His subject matter is the human condition. The metaphor for his art, although it included self-portraits, is dominated by the image of the child, but not the carefree innocent child of popular imagination. Helnwein instead created the profoundly disturbing yet compellingly provocative image of the wounded child. The child scarred physically and the child scarred emotionally from within.
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"Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot, which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie."
Jean Cocteau ...

"Helnwein's meticulous Irish landscapes, which are the cornerstone of this Crawford show, are unashamedly aesthetic: gorgeous confections of pure, delicious spectacle. The typically epic but not inhuman scale imitates the subject matter. The tonal realism will make people go "Wow, are they paintings?" - thanks to the photorealist finish which seems free of the foibles of the human hand. Helnwein works with very small brushes - highlighting and subtly magnifying here, muting colours or creating shadows there; pushing some paintings towards momentary sleights of impressionism; and others towards seamless, burnished hyperreality. The bird's eye view suggests a kind of superhuman vision which can simultaneously take in the entire view with breath-taking clarity, like some bionic eagle."
Mic Moroney, from the essay "Out of the Apocalypse into the Sublime - bursting into Irish Landscape: Citizen Helnwein" ...

* Helnwein's Epiphany I has been up on our site for years now. For a while I used it as wallpaper on my desktop. Perhaps that explains how the first hypertext poem came to be one about the Virgin. But as I struggled with updating the site, I checked all my old resources and came across materials that explain Helnwein's commitments and meanings far better than I could alone. ...

Еще несколько любимых мной фотографий. Эти три были сделаны человеком по имени Gottfried Helnwein (www.helnwein.com). Фотграф часто снимал детей, причем как раз так, как мне это нравится. А еще он сотрудничал с Мерлином Мэнсоном. Такие дела. Фото сверху входит в серию "Modern sleep". Восхитительная спящая девочка, хочу себе такую же. Эту фотографию гигантских размеров можно было наблюдать в составе инсталляции на Los Angeles ARTshow 2003, Santa Monica. На фотографии справа под текстом - инсталляция Ninth November Night 1988. Дети дети дети, множество фотографий, каждая размером 370 на 250 сантиметров. Красиво. ...

Checklist
THE POLAROID COLLECTION ...

"The world doesn't like people that are different than the average. Rulers throughout history have always hated those people that stick out of the masses, - the geniuses, the poets, monsters, artists, witches and saints; and usually they burned them or put them in dungeons, concentration-camps or mental institutions, thinking of what a nice and peaceful slave-camp this planet could be without them.
But for some miraculous reason this desert-town here seems to be different than the rest of the world, because here they don't mind these monsters, they actually seem to like them.
L.A. is the sanctuary for people with weird visions and impossible dreams. Maybe it's the last place on earth where dreams are still legal." ...

Author, director and actor Rodrigo M. Malmsten, 28 years, was born in Buenos Aires.
His first opera “KLEINES HELNWEIN”, which he wrote and also directed himself, was awarded several prizes. It was inspired by the works of the painter Gottfried Helnwein; some of Helnwein´s paintings are shown in the opera by means of visual projections. ...

Um Empathie, eine Grundqualifikation für soziales Handeln – nämlich die Fähigkeit eines Menschen, sich in die Erwartungen eines anderen Menschen einzufühlen, diese zu verstehen und auf sie einzugehen– einzuüben, habe ich das Bild „Mein Freund“ von Gottfried Helnwein den Kindern gezeigt. Sie sollten das Bild eines trauernden, verzweifelten Mannes interpretieren, ihm verschiedene Gefühle zuordnen und Ursachen benennen, die zu seinem Gesichtsausdruck geführt haben könnten. Damit die Konfliktparteien sich den Streitschlichtern gegenüber öffnen und anvertrauen, sollten die Streitschlichter in der Lage sein, sich in eine Situation bzw. in eine Person „hineinzufühlen“. ...

Helnwein ...was born in war-torn Vienna in 1948 and received a classical education under Rudolf Hausner at Vienna’s academy. But in the late 1960’s, he and fellow art students rebelled, staging Aktions or happenings within the Vienna Academy and out in the streets. In one, Helnwein stood quietly for hours with an enormous three-foot papier mache sculpture of a hornet clinging to his back.
In 1971 he began the first of a series of troubling pictures showing children grotesquely disfigured with surgical scars. ...

Table ronde à al Volksbühne sur le sujet "violence, Antiquité, sexualité" avec (de g. à dr.) Hans Neuenfells, Hainer Müller (penché en avant), Ernest Bornemann et Gottfried Helnwein (1986)
...

Those who have used the same or multiple forms of the image many times over many years include Lichtenstein, Helnwein, Oldenburg, Pensato, Ospina, and Chagoya. Some have used the image more persistently than others have.
Most of the images are straightforward, but some are not. For example, Christian Boltanski installed photographs of children, who were members (fans) of the 1955 French Mickey Mouse Club (ills. 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3). Rhonda Zwillinger (ill. 76.1) incorporated the castle at Disneyland into one of her paintings. Burt Payne 3 and Steve Hillenburg (ill. 32.1) used the image of Walt Disney himself in a small plastic sculpture: Walt Disney with mouse ears encased in clear plastic—the frozen Walt doll.[10] Some of these artists have produced a significant body of work based on the Mouse. ...

Alle Beteiligten gingen mit Akribie an die Arbeit. Sie verbanden, unter der Leitung von GMD John Fiore, die wunderbare Musik Robert Schumanns mit einer von Gregor Seyffert und Gottfried Helnwein großartigen szenischen Umsetzung des Textes von Thomas Moore. In fünf Aufführungen fanden sich mehr als 6.000 begeisterte Zuhörer und Zuschauer in der Tonhalle ein. Den Beifall des Publikums konnte man an jedem Abend „frenetisch“ nennen.

...

Burroughs on photographer Gottfried Helnwein
"How can a self-portrait depict statuesque calm in the face of the horrors that surround us all?" ...

The films themselves range from documents of performances to highly structured experimental films. The Art of Destruction concerns the main protagonists of the movement and their own particular brands of performance/art/terrorism as well as a discussion of the major films and their influences. Each member is given space for biography (and there are some bizarre backgrounds to be sure) and key performances, all amply illustrated in disturbing black and white. Rather than just a catalogue of broken taboos the VAG are seen as natural extensions of both Dadaism and the "Happening" scene of the '50s, but one distinctly Austrian in the way that it rebelled against a harshly censorious government whom the performers saw as intrinsically unrepentant of its recent fascist past. This adds greater weight to the performances than perhaps the later New York transgressive movement, and their influence can be seen in everything from Helnwein paintings to mainstream Marilyn Manson videos. ...

Inszenierung, Choreografie: Gregor Seyffert
Bühne, Video, Licht, Kostüme und Maske: und Gottfried Helnwein
Dichtung aus "Lalla Rookh" von Thomas Moore
für Solostimmen, Chor und Orchester ...

Je vous invite à parcourir les images, cheminements flashés de mon art, expériences visuelles vécues à l'extrème dans une société qui oublie souvent que derrière ses barrières modérées, se cachent des blessures et émotions mais qu'elle refoule, et qui sont souvent taboues. Rejoignant les aspirations d'artistes tels que Arnulf Rainer, autres Aktionnistes Viennois, jusqu'à Gottfried Helnwein, mais aussi Antonin Artaud, etc ... je cherche à retrouver l'identité archaïque de l'humain à-travers sa tragédie de la mort et de la naissance, ses processus de transformations dans la vie. Les travaux d'art exposés dans mon site , ne sont pas tous issus de mon expérience "N.D.E", peut-être que certains en sont plus ou moins imprégnés et je pense que la page de mes masques de morts, sont ici plus emprunts de cette expérience, [voir "The mortuary"] .... ...

Es gibt gewichtige Gründe, um Helnwein als den legitimen Erben Beuys und Warhols zu bezeichnen. Einerseits folgt er in seinen Werken rituellen Mustern, andererseits spielt er mit einer Reihe von künstlerischen Variationen. Er untergräbt die Magie der Bilderwelt, indem er einen Störfaktor einbaut, durch den ein Schock im Verhältnis zwischen dem Kunstwerk und dem Betrachter entsteht. Helnwein vermischt Altes mit Neuem, und sein Stil spiegelt den Beginn der Moderne, aber auch die Welt des Cyberspace wieder. Einen großen Einfluss hat das Wien der sechziger Jahre auf ihn. Auch wird er von der Welt des Comics inspiriert. Helnwein besuchte die 'Höhere Graphische Bundeslehr- und Versuchsanstalt'. Um gegen die tägliche Routine des Klassenzimmers zu protestieren, schnitt er sich mit einer Rasierklinge die Hände auf. Durch diesem Vorfall wurde ihm bewußt, wie hilflos die Gesellschaft auf körperliche Ungerechtigkeit und auf Verletzungen reagiert. Nach dem Abschluss an der 'Graphischen' besuchte er die Wiener Akademie der Künste. Zu dieser Zeit tauchte auch zum ersten mal eines seiner Leitmotive auf: Kinder. Durch das Malen von verletzten Kindern verursachte Helnwein eine Art Schock, und brachte somit den 'Horror' zurück in die Kunst. Damit zeigte er offen den Zynismus einer Gesellschaft, die nicht mehr die Dinge so sieht, wie sie sind, dessen Sichtweise aber durch 'Bilder über Dinge' geprägt ist. ...

Contrary to what his critics may believe, Manson in no way supports Hitler or Nazism. Not only is it "impossible to be fascist when you're into fashion," but the very nature of Hitler's rise to power sounded a death knell to the very art movements that Manson was inspired by. The final track on The Golden Age of Grotesque, Obsequey (the Death of Art) and the painting by the same name, demonstrates how fervidly anti-Hitler Manson really is. The painting shows the dome of Berlin burning, a direct result of Hitler becoming chancellor. According to Manson in an interview with NY Rock, "Hitler tried to define art and outlawed some of it by calling it degenerated and decadent. Hitler imposed his will and banned art he considered immoral. I'm not sure if the people who adopt those phrases and try to ban my art are aware of the implications they carry."
Interestingly enough, when the same outfit was used in the mOBSCENE video, the insignia was missing. Of course, the time period for that song was exclusively Weimar Berlin, before the Nazi takeover. The outfit was also similar to that worn by Marlene Dietrich in the film Seven Sinners
Helnwein's 'Album Covers that Never Were'
... Some of Manson's other wardrobe is reminiscent of Nazi dress as well. In the series, Album Covers that Never Were, (Manson's record company deemed the photographs too risque to be used for the cover) in which Manson collaborated with Gottfried Helnwein, he wore a typical Nazi officer's cap. The same outfit was used when Manson posed for the cover of Metal Hammer. He dressed in Nazi regalia, clutching a gun as a young girl looked on. His expression, however, again shows exactly how he feels about the Nazi movement. ...

The following suicide notes were left by Japanese schoolchildren, aged ten to fifteen, who killed themselves within the last several years. Some of them met in suicide chat rooms, which are becoming increasingly popular in Japan.
translated from the Japanese by Patrick Luhan. ...

In fact, his work is insistently open-ended. Like Goya's Disasters of War, his art queries time and again, "How can this have happened?" Sometimes viewers reply, assaulting pictures of innocent children, worshipping those of a murderous dictator. Yet such reactions can only bring us to inquire again, louder and with greater urgency, "How can this have happened?" At last we recognize that Helnwein asks questions not in order to solicit answers - hate has no reason - but rather in order that we might begin to pose our own. ...