Gottfried Helnwein was born 8 October, 1948 in Vienna. In the same city he studied University of Visual Art and now he works as a painter, draftsman, photographer, muralist, sculptor, installation- and performance artist, using a wide variety of techniques and media. His works are mainly hyper-realistic.

The exhibition consists of five sections which present the fundamental circuits of Helnwein's work. The biggest space is given to theme of "das malträtierte Kind - the child exposed suffering.In many paintings he shows clearly the opinion about Nazism - these works are considered as controversial and in the end the artist had to move out from Austria. Now he lives in Ireland.

One of these most "controversial" paintings is "Epiphany I"Helnwein's freind is Marilyn Manson and he also made several photographs of him which are all around the world quite well know, for example these:

Although I am not a big fan of hyper-realism I could not believe my eyes - especially the last section was rising in you an impression which makes you wanting to believe these can't be photographs. After all the paintings which were so hyper-realistic one wasn't sure if the "photograph" of Manson is really a photograph or another great painting. I came out from the exhibition spaces slightly depressed tough...Anyway, I was glad I didn't miss the chance to see "Angels Sleeping".