The most powerful images that deal with Nazism and Holocaust themes are by Anselm Kiefer and Gottfried Helnwein.The work of both artists are informed by the personal experience of growing up in post-war German speaking countries...William Burroughs said that the American revolution begins in books and music,and political operatives implement the changes after the fact.To this maybe we can add art.And Helnwein's art might have the capacity to instigate change by piercing the veil of political correctnessto recapture the primitive gesture inherent in art.
Jewish Journal, Los AngelesMitchell Waxman
Again and again, Helnwein painted children in brutal, violent settings. He has used Chris tian iconography to depict Nazi officers, and juxtaposed rampaging soldiers with Images of childhood innocence. Visceral reactions come with the territory: one Installation in Cologne was physically attacked by neo Nazis. And yet, he says, he does not set out to shock. "Shock is a useless effect," he says. "Somebody in shock is completely useless. I want to make somebody think".
The Sunday Time, UK, Gerry McCarthy
An extremely impressive work "Selection- Ninth November Night", made in 1988, consisted of a series of uniform, huge images of children's faces, stretching from Cologne's Ludwig Museum to its cathedral. The subtitle, (Ninth November Night), gave the clue to the event the work marked - the start of the Holocaust on Reichskristallnacht, November 9, 1938.In presenting people with a series of entirely neutral, if rather beautiful, pictures of innocence and implicitly pointing out that just such innocents were sorted and selected for extermination, Helnwein was resurrecting an aspect of the past that most Germans and, perhaps even more so, Austrians, have preferred to forget.It certainly annoyed someone to the extent that they came and vandalised it, symbolically cutting the throats of some of the images. Selection shares with Helnwein's more sensational work a desire to prod us into thought about our own attitudes and roles.The real horror, as his work reiterates, is indifference and complacency.
The Irish Times, Aidan Dunne
The presentation in Israel was possible with the generous support of:The Austrian Cultural Forum Tel AvivTrevision Visual Communication GroupFriedman-Benda Gallery, New YorkThe Israeli Opera
NINTH NOVEMBER NIGHT has been shown at
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, 1988Musee'De L'Elysee Lausanne, Switzerland, 1990Minoriten Church, Museum of Lower Austria, Krems, Austria 1991City center of Heilbronn, Germany, 1992Museum St. Ingbert, Albert Weisgerber Stiftung, Saarbrücken, Germany, 1993Ludwig Institut, Schloss Oberhausen, Germany, 1995Kulturbrauerei, Berlin, Germany, 1996Museum of Fine Art, Otaru, Japan, 1996The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1997City of Kilkenny, Ireland, 2001Museum of Tolerance/Simon Wiesenthal Center Los Angeles, 2003Tel Aviv, Israel, 2010
THE ART OF HUMANITY by Jonathon Keats
Museum of Tolerance, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles, 09. November 2003Documentary "Ninth November Night" , Children and the Holocaust in the Art of Gottfried Helnwein
COMMEMORATING THE 68TH ANNIVERSARY OF KRISTALLNACHT AND RECOGNIZING THE ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTIONS OF GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN IN KEEPING THE MEMORY OF THE HOLOCAUST ALIVE.
JOURNAL OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF PHILADELPHIA.Council of the City of PhiladelphiaCity Council Resolution16. November 2006
