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. ...

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. ...

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 ...

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. ...

"Well, the world is a haunted house, and Helnwein at times is our tour guide through it.
I think in anything that is really relevant and emotional art, there is some kind of a mirror that people experience. I don't think that you can recognize a feeling from something that you look at unless it's part of yourself, and so when someone is willing to take on the sadness, the irony, the ugliness and the beauty in the kind of way that Gottfried Helnwein does.
Not all of Gottfried's work is on a canvas.
A lot of it is the way he's approached life. And it doesn't take someone knowing him to know that. You take one look at the paintings and you say "this guy has been around." You can't sit in a closet - and create this.
This level of work is earned."
Sean Penn ...

* Gottfried Helnwein, artist, born in Vienna, 1948
* Theodor Herzl "founder" of Israel, lived most of his life in Austria
* Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933-1945, born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn ...