January 1st, 2004
the adac newsletter november 2004
"The Child"- Gottfried Helnwein in the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums
::: mick's picks
Typed with one finger by Mick Sheldon
The Gottfried Helnwein exhibition in the second floor gallery is extraordinary in it’s utter insistence on a severely restricted palette. This exhibition is blue blue blue.
Helnwein has been primarily using a Prussian blue with tints and shades for a couple of decades while showing them at San Francisco’s Modernism Gallery on Market Street. His show called "The Child" takes a look at the uber little girl painted in a somber mood in a curious setting with inferences of a psycho-sexual nature. He’s from that post World War II German-Austrian angst ridden era that is conveyed with sledgehammer suggestions of death and violence. These paintings are photo derived yet gorgeous and so well done you’ll think that you’re witnessing a near miracle.