December 15th, 2005
San Francisco Weekly
Gottfried's Ghosts
Michael Leaverton
Gottfried Helnwein, one man show at Modernism San Francisco
In one Gottfried Helnwein painting, a child sits slumped at the foot of her bed, her expression strangely blank given the other figure in the bare room — a ghostly, uniformed bunny standing at attention like something out of a nightmarish Nutcracker (or, given the rabbit’s creepy saucer-wide eyes, Donnie Darko). In another, the girl dozes as a Mad Hatter–ish beast, outfitted entirely in yellow, reaches out to scoop her up. Although children wounded both physically and psychologically have appeared in Helnwein's work since the early '70s - earning him no small measure of controversy..

...these pieces echo his second career as a costume designer for theater and ballet. In the exhibit "New Paintings," the Vienna-born Helnwein, an inspiration to Marilyn Manson and legions of doughy Midwestern teens, lets his photo-realistic skills trump his notorious past.

Dec. 20-Jan. 14. Modernism, 685 Market (at Kearny), San Francisco, 415-541-0461, http://www.modernisminc.com.
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