Károli Gáspár Református Egyetem
Bölcsészettudományi Kar
Szabadbölcsészet Tanszék
The Homogenization of High and PopularCulture in the Art of Gottfried Helnwein
Konzulens: Dr. Fülöp József
Egyetemi adjunktus
Készítette: Szalai Szonja Krisztina
Szabadbölcsész alapszak,
Művészettörténet szakirány
Budapest, 20202

The subject of my thesis is the connection between the Austrian artist
Gottfried Helnwein’s oeuvre
and popular culture. It seems nowadays high culture loses its former position. Because of technical
development’s extensive spreading, popular culture becomes accessible easier in society. Television,
radio and internet provide the channels which help this type of culture get a wide range of audiences
oriented to their pretension. High culture always has a quality defining role because it’s based on
values but therefore it’s hardly acceptable and never gets to the crowds.
Gottfried Helnwein is a standout example of contemporary artists, combining high culture
and popular culture in one work while preserving his position in the elite culture’s fine art sphere.
He represents this perception consequently in all of his works re gardless on the chosen form of
expression.
Gottfried Helnwein is a defining person in the European contemporary fine art sphere. He
creates works in many genres: painting, scene and costume design, music video and photography.
His career is a bridge from modernism to post modernism. He started his career in the end of the
60s, he wasn’t majorly influenced by the avantgarde movement (except for some of his
performances) in that era. The base of his works was Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) w hich
was born in German speaking countries combined with expressionism and surrealism.
Historical references and appearances of violence accompanied by the icons of the popular
culture many times raise the provocative effect of his works and the encounter with these evokes
unease from audiences, therefore they are divisive . His consequently built oeuvre instead of being
always distant and rigid is still celebratory and emotional.
Firstly, I’m going to analyze the differences between elite culture and mass culture based on various experts’ writings in the XX XXI century, focusing these two types of cultures’ connection to
fine art. After I presented Helnwein’s background, I’ll discuss the artist’s relationship with popular
culture through his themes and med ia. To conclude my thesis I will add my personal opinion on this topic.

The aim of my exploration is to reveal the opportunity of culturally distant matters’ synthesis
based on the interpretation of the artist’s works. This is a crucial feature of Postmod ernism.
My goal is to present his world view and values in a non biased way because his oeuvre isn’t

The establishment of a socialsystemin a community and becoming an independent nation requires a sort of unique culture in itself which discerns from another nations. A former type of culture before the mass culture’s emergence, called folk culture, appears in societies since ancient times.
The emergence of mass culture includes factors such as urbanization, industrialization and technical development. It’s worth mentioning the breakthrough of communicational technologies like press, radio or television. Mass culture is the product of mass societies which are present in big cities. Characteristics of mass society are intense physical compression yet areal extension, heterogeneous   consistence of population and itsinner atomization, the members’ impersonality, dispersion of the social roles and the formal character of the social relations. Big cities haven’t got a well-defined socio-metric structure, the social interest between people is not significant, individual isolation is common.
Nowadays, primarily due to the internet, products of this form of culture are accessible not only in big cities but everywhere in the world and they are elemental parts of globalization.

Philosopher Tibor Bárány, whose research concerns that distinction between high art and popular culture, in his essay titled High art and mass culture, the unexisting difference in values(Magasművészet és tömegkultúra, avagy a nem létező értékkülönbség nyomában) also deals with the differences of these two concepts. Bárány refers to the American art-philosopher Noel Carroll. Carroll argues that the two concepts (mass culture and popular culture) must be separate because the term popular culture is wider. Popular culture includes all artworks which were popular in that time which dealt with high culture regardless of quality. Let’s see an example, Shakespeare’s dramas. These plays’ popularity and the size of the audience corresponds to a popular online serie in our times. It’s important to emphasize, that popular culture not only includes products which are created by mass-production but also products which only have one piece (popular paintings, sculptures, etc.). In the case of a play every show is qualified as an independent artifact because the circle of the potential audience is limited in time. According to Carroll’s definition, artworks of mass culture is only a subset of popular culture:
x is a mass artwork if and only if I) x is an artwork 2) produced and distributed by a mass delivery technology 3) which is intentionally designed co gravitate in its scructural choices (e.g., its narrative forms, symbolism, intended affect and, perhaps, even in its content) toward those choices which promise accessibility with minimum effort for the largest number of untutored (or relatively untutored) audiences.

In this part I’m going to review a few important features of mass culture which I find to be relevant for my thesis. The American psychologist G. D. Wiebe whose main research area is social marketing, separates three types of culture depending on the number of consumers. Real mass culture’s range is over 10 million people, middle-rangeculture, in which the works’ audience circa a million, and tighest-range culturewhich is called the culture of people who haveuniqueinterests.
Mass culture’s organizers need to consider the audience is diverse. This consideration is very important if they want to synchronize the contents based on the lowest common denominator. These contents deal with basic patterns like humor, drama, love, sexuality, sentimentalism and personal issues.
Personal issues need to be highlighted because a new concept can be introduced in regards to that. This is the human interest,the direct human relationships and problems in relation to humans’ personality or smaller society groups. A large quantity of the products of mass culture appeal to this concept.
Homogenization7 means the mix of cultural elements from different levels. Narrowing to mass culture means the higher cultural level’s elements mixing with the lower ones. It overthrows the value hierarchy and reduces the distance between the given high and low cultural elements. This mixing is done in three ways: simplistic, immanent and mechanic. In the course of immanent homogenization the artist brings elements of high art into low art, which also attracts the general public. There is no doubt these artworks belong to high culture but the content or formal specificity is aimed atmass consumption.

One cannot define mass culture without value judgment.The critics come from high culture, stating thatreal culture is the culture of a higher social class. It needs to keep distance from the masses. Nietzsche called the modern culture a commercialized culture.9 This value system rules not only in the area of arts but areas of philosophy and sciences too. The access is possible only for a narrow social class.  Massive culture consumption and general access lead to the degeneration ofthe culture. According to Nietzsche searching for happiness and satisfaction cannot ever be the real aim of the culture.
Ortega y Gasset argues that in the demographic revolution of the XVIII-XIX century the “mass person”appears, this type of man’s features are nihilism, hedonism, narrowness pragmatism,and the elimination of ideological interests. Mass person doesn’t care about higher values because his aim is just to satisfy his own practical needs for life.

The most approachable artistic tradition to the masses is the realist. In the first half of the XX. Century avant-garde art movements separated fromthis simple and easily-understood type of art.
According to Ortega, modern art’s main characteristics is dehumanization, including the abstraction from nature.What he calls avant-garde formalism programmatically denies the XIX. Century’s realism. According to Ortega, formalism as a movement hasn’t got a chance to collect a wide audience.
According to American art critic Clement Greenberg, the avant-garde represents the values of the XX. Century, which constantly search for new forms of expression. He opposes this movement -the only authentic form of art for him -with the narrow classes’ Academism and with the kitsch consumed by the widest audiences. According to Greenberg academism is also kitch,but on a higher level.

In the end of the last century’s 50’s in England and in the USA Pop-art formed, and the artists in this movement used only the pictures of consumer society’s products. At first, this easily-understood visual world counted for the reception of the wide range of society. However, as an avant-garde movement, only a tight range of experts deal with it. Pop-art is on the midway between a critical aspect, distance creating attitude (in an ironic way) and exaltation of mass culture. The concerning opinions are not very clear, whether they deal with the judgment of the consumer culture or the propagation of it.
The question of massificationcan be found in dadaism, for example in Marcell Duchamp’s artworks made with the tool called ready-made (e.g. Fountain). Pop-art is sometimes called neo-dadaismas irony is an important feature in this movement too.

When we talk about art our references always come from high art. Distinction between high art and low art is not qualitative. High art has a clear definition. It includes the conventional patterns within arts: paintings, poems, classical music but not all of them have excellent quality or belong to outstanding artworks. However, we can find prominent ones in the low art section as well. We can not match high art with good quality or low art and bad quality. What we define as high/low culture depends on the given society.
In the discourse about art, this distinction forms our attitude. It is generally accepted that high art should be supported over low art as it is more valuable. Popular culture has no adequate definition. We define high art with certain genres and forms of expression. According to the American philosopher Paul Oskar Kristeller some form of arts became known as “fine arts” since the XVIII. Century. The French aesthete Charles Batteux suggested the categorization of fine arts into painting, sculpting, architecture, music and poetry. These are the great arts.To form a hierarchy between arts has been a tendency since Renaissance. This hierarchy is based on societal values rather than inherent values. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieau makes a difference between the highbrow and the middlebrow tastes and derives that from social class-division.

American philosopher Theodore Gracyk argues there is an essential difference between fine art and popular art, but according to a few experts this difference has merely a social origin.
According to the English philosopher, Berys Gaut within higher-order artworks different feature-combinations can be observed. The work was “sewed” by these feature-threads. These characteristics are: 1) positively aesthetic, 2) emotionally expressive, 3) intellectually challenging, 4) formally complex and coherent. Gaut rejects the essentialist definition categorizing classes based on art forms. Artworks belonging to the higher class include these characteristics on different levels, gradualismis proper, which he calls the high-to-lowhierarchy. The hierarchy’s definition is never truly clear.
Middlebrow category emerges from artworks which have high art features (some of which could be missing), or this characteristic is present but in a lower way.  Low art forms could carry high-art messages and vice versa, high art forms could be connected to low art messages.
In the high art –low art debate, the subject of my thesis, Gottfried Helnwein, rejects the argument that popular art forms destroy the pure, transcendental aesthetic. Helnwein claims that the splitting of the two categories is elitist and artificial.

The artist’s childhood took place in Austria after the II. World War.In this time, nobody talked about the brutality of the Nazis. Austrians historical remembrance was empty considering the recent past. They repressed the memories of the war and the thought of Austria celebrating the Nazi’s arrival in the beginning of war.In this era, Austria played the role of ‘the first victim of fascism”. For Helnwein this was hard to except already then.
The appearance of terrified and abused children in his works reflects this era. Besides dealing with this issue, he was concerned with two other important matters.
One of them was the strict Catholic upbringing, its rules and punishments reminding him of the fascist occupation and ideology. The other one was the suffering of the martyrs which were depicted on murals in churches along with the flagellation of Jesus Christ.
He escaped the depressing environment of the Catholic School through Walt Disney’s world. The characters of Disney comics are recurrent elements in his works. An analogy with popular culture can be drawn here as well.

He started his studies in the Viennese Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr und Versuchsanstalt in 1965 where he had rebellious manifestations against the conformist, traditional system and education. He cut his arms with a razorblade and painted a portrait of Hitler with his blood. He got expelled because of that. In 1969 he got admitted to Akademie der bildenden Künste Wienwith his artwork titled Osterwetter. He has been added to Rudolf Hausner’s class who provided total freedom to his students during his classes. Still, Helnwein was unsatisfied with the educational system therefore he organized i.e.Anarchist Actionswith his classmates. He continued his controversial activity, motivated by the dissatisfaction of the Establishment and the denial of the Austrian recent past, he painted another picture of Hitler. This however did not generate a scandal as large as the previous time.He started doing his action-work in 1972, usually with children, and he made photo-documentation about these performances.

The early works of Gottfried Helnwein were made with the features of Neue Sachlichkeit. This German art movement emerged against expressionism and abstract art in the 1920’s. On the pictures the material world’s main issues appear very detailed and alienated in a rigid manner. Social relations are represented in acaricaturedsatyric form. Artists use sharp and heavy contours for the highlighting and isolation of the elements. The movement’s most important artists are Otto Dix and George Grosz whose most preferred issues were the representation of the disasters of war, the invalids and the weapon factory owners.27 New Objectivity’s naturalist, daily issues were not characterized as classical fine art but they gave inspiration to Helnwein.28 Other than the two already mentioned artists Christian Schad needs to be referred, who is usually connected with “magical realism”. His photographic paintings have a rigideffect. Gottfried Helnwein’s early works are related to him in style and in thematicsuch as Schad’s painting titled Operation (Appendectomy in Geneva) made in 1929. Surgical instruments appear in later works for example in his photo series made in 1986-87 which are characterized by features of Viennese Actionism.

The purpose of the actionism’s artistic expression is the actwhich happens in a marked time interval, and its main character is the artist himself. Viennese Actionism formed in the 1960’s, and the most important members of this movement are Hermann Nitzsch, Otto Mühl, Günther Brus, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. These artists used different objects and materials in addition to their body. The form of the artwork was a performance such as a ritual –sometimes involving the audience -the purpose of them were the releasing of the collective mind and satisfying instincts. Rudolf Schwarzkogler usually bandaged himself and committed self harm (mutilations, castration) in the context of his performances. He commited suicide by jumping out of his window in his late twenties. There are many photo documentations and montages about his works. Actionists were really noticed by the public in the early 70’s when Hermann Nitsch started performing his series of bloody orgies (Orgien-Mysterien Theatre).
Although Helnwein didn’t pay attention to the events of the art scene in those days, because of his rebellious attitude he made similar performances and he documented it from 1972. In relation to his other works children played an important role in this performances, the artist equipped them with surgical instruments. Helnwein’s intent was to provoke outrage of the odious and generally accepted treatment of children as society’s easy victims. He has done his last performance in 1976 titled Always Prepared. He lies on the street with a bandaged head but except for a woman and a  child nobody wants to help him, most of the passers-by remain unbothered. In the case of Helnwein the face covered with bandages symbolises people’s anonymity in mass society. One form of the action works is when the artist (Günter Brus, Valie Export, Chris Burden, etc.) is provoking people on streets with different acts. Especially in the case of Christo’s oeuvre wrapping means alienation.

Gottfried Helnwein’s self-portrait from 1981 is related to the German-Asutrian sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt who lived and worked in the late baroque period. He was the most sought-for portrait artist in his time until he became ill (referred to as confusion in the head). His series of grimacing character sculptures gives a horrific experience to the audience who never faced something similar till then. It was the intent of the artist to provoke the society and the classical artistic form.
Towards that the American hyperrealism (Chuck Close, Richard Estes, Ralph Goings) on Helnwein’s pictures the method didn’t matter but the style of creating resulting in the photo’s cool, and impersonal appearance. In his works, the “what” is more important than the “how”.33 Helnwein always assigns meaningful content to his artworks and he confronts his contemporaries with moral questions and social problems.
In 1979 he painted the watercolor Life Not Worth Living,the reproduction of which was sent to a magazine with a letter which led to a social discussion about a Nazi doctor’s displacement of his executive function.
All his oeuvre deals with the elements of surrelaism’s strange associations and its most important means of expression the montage technique. 

Helnwein’s art can be connected here also. He usesall the opportunities of technology and computer in order to get his art to the widest public audience. Besides his unique drawings and paintings his works appear on magazine covers, posters, offset lithographies, album covers and large paintings in public areas and billboards.
Helnwein’s oeuvre in his early decades (and later too) is based on popular culture and its patterns. Already as a young artist he got publicity because he always reflected the problems, happenings and important people of the given era with his pictures. His main intent is to make an impact, his artworks are not only targeted to the experts of the art sphere but the wide audiences too.Those, who analyse artworks in a traditional way, admit to his technical skills. Those who approach his works in social or political ways admit to the engagement against hypocrisy, pollution, and militarism as well as his opposition with the political power. His works are always made in the spirit of the “here and now” in any given historical context.

Neue Sachlichkeit’s features are also notable on the 102x73 cm Sunday’s Child [Picture 4]which was made in 1972 with mixed techniques on cardboard. Another important element of mass culture represented in this artwork, advertisement, refers to the consumer society that is destined to make people forget every day life’s sufferings and pain. The girl on the picture wears an armband with three dots indicating that she’s blind and for some reasons blood runs on her knees. The other character on the picture is a little duck with a backpack representing the surrealist mentality. It holds an ice cream, this and the chocolate in the girl’s hand is connected to the concept of children, the most important attribute being the sweetness. Theartwork’s title reflects another everyday’s life depressing factor, Sunday.  People are break out from their everyday life, form the ordinary lifestyle and they’re forced to face themselves in their free time, and need to spend this time usefully, preparing to go back to their normal life the next day.

Popular culture dominates people’s behaviour and social relationships using media’s new technologies as mediators. Large companies like Walt Disney Corporation mainly target children. This helps them to realize their own place in this world, understand themselves and make relationships with other people in their immediate and more distant surroundings too.

For childrenDisney is a desired world where they explore the elements of fantasy and entertainment, furthermore they’ve got the opportunity to enter a special world that is more exciting and colorful than everyday life. Viewers are charged with adventure through the animated characters powerful emotional expressions, moreover it provides escape from real life’s horribilities and difficulties. But Disney’s dream world is far from innocent, it carries the optional perspectives of future and the values which they represent and the optional forms of identity especially for children.
Disney’s view of childhood innocence fits in an association system where child and adult are able to  define themselves by a cultural language which provides moral satisfaction and coherent identity. Disney blurred the lines between public education and the sphere of commerce interest by means of mass media and in order to do this it made large themed parks in the form of Disneyland and Disney World.
Innocence is not only connected to the sentimental idea of childish fantasy but it defines thinking about moral norms and history. According to Disney, innocence takes places like “the deepest truth”which legitimized the escapist fantasy’s entertaining sights. At Disney innocence becomes an ideological and educational vehicle, offering conservative ideology and values as norms which is necessary to maintain the traditional social hierarchy.
“Good comics are sacred art” –Helnwein said. He could completely identify with the Disney-creatures since his childhood. He made a series in 1993, one of them with chalk, where Picasso is depicted with a little Donald Duck. Picasso personalizes the character of the successful “modern” artist known by everyone for the wide general public. The modern art icon and the duck such as symbols appearance on a common artistic surface is one of the first manifestation of homogenization in Helnwein’s work. The two figures are bounded by the concept of mass production. Donald Duck is a mass-produced product of the game-industry, while Picasso as the avant-garde art movement’s front-line fighter, produced his own artworks in large quantity to the art market. Another piece of the series is titled The Temptation of Josef Beuys(1993. color pencil, paper 70x57 cm) [Picture 5]. Josef Beuys the iconic figure of avant-garde, one of the most significant person of the Fluxus movement contemplatively watches a little, happy Disney-figure. The displayed avant-garde artists –unquestionable “stars” of elite culture –and the Disney characters juxtaposition an accurate example of the immanent homogenization. The ensemble displaying of the motifs is not random -although it could be seen surrealistic at first sight –they’ve got a logical relation between them.
The blue monochrome series about Donald Duck belongs here as well. Thereafter he painted an also monochrome large Mickey Mouse (Untitled, 1995, oil-acrylic on canvas 210x310 cm) [Picture 6]in 1995/6. The happiness and vitality of the Disney stories and the characters always attract the artist, he didn’t concern himself about the asexuality of the characters, the capitalist message of these stories and figures and the exploitation of the youth’s imagination.48 However he paints these figures in monochrome, with three-dimensionaland dark light-shadow effects (in contrast with the originals) –using techniques found in classical paintings for example blurred contours, making these figures large. This deprives them from their original meaning and creates scary, nightmarish charactersin the sight of the viewer.

Since the 80’s photography became Helnwein’s primary tool of expression. All in his works connecting to photography he consciously uses the tools of advertisement and fashion photography, and billboards. The world, created with the composition-solvings and light techniques used in advertising industry makes contrast with the messages of his work despite of the application of these techniques in his own pictures.
He made photo portrait about icons who has been having a great influence on contemporary culture. Through the camera –the tool of observing in this case –he focuses on the details of his subjects grabbing them out of their environment. That’s the way that the new visual connection between the artist and the model is generated: the artist is an observer and participant too.
Helnwein took photos about Andy Warhol, the most famous representative of Pop Art, in 1983. RoyLichtenstein pop art painter appeared on his photographs too, besides that his work based on photography deals with different stars of the pop or rock music scene such as Michael Jackson or Keith Richards. Besides these pop icons, he made a portrait aboutthe Austrian writer and poet H C Artmann, the German dramatist Heiner Müller and the American writer William S. Burroughs who 15

was a standout figure of the beat nation. Helnwein works with dramatic light-shadow effect on these black and white photographs. His portrait works of popular icons appear as applied art in biographies and magazine covers.
In 1994-96 the artist continued his portrait series (Fire) about famous people who were rebellious individualities in the 20thcentury and represented antithetical views against the generally accepted culture. In addition to writers and popstars he photographed composers, scientists, directors, political activists, actors and philosophers. On these photo-based, dark-toned, blue, veiled oil-acryl paintings, faces are blurred, hard to identify.
Helnwein created a large quantity of advertisements and album covers including controversial and shocking artists such as Marilyn Manson or the band Rammstein. The American singer-songwriter Marilyn Manson started his carrier in the 90’s, and he became one of the most determining American rock musicians in the 2000’s. Manson and Helnwein are having a close friendship to this day.
In 2003 Manson released his album titledThe Golden Age of Grotesquewhich wears the strongest influence of Helnwein in appearance. Manson started his long-term collaboration with the artist in 2002. They’ve made album graphics and monumental multimedia products and installations. The album’s appearance and the songs were mostly inspired by the 1920’s era decadent swing, burlesque,cabaretand vaudevilleworld of Weimar, Germany.
Grotesque as an aesthetic category has a complex depiction. Malformed or scary elements combined with nice, sometimes petty, or funny features makes confusion. Grotesque visions are noticeable on the two Marilyn Manson portraits which are made to propagate the new album titled Golden Age 1-2. (2003. photograph 200x130 cm) [Picture 7-8]. Both of them are symmetrical portraits with lighting from above. In this case classical portrait’s features are not prevailed: Manson holds his head downward, he stares into the camera but his eyes are shaded. Human characteristics are often represented with the eyes but in these pictures we don’t experienced that, this covered look rather suggests the man’s tonelessness. The classic frontal photograph’s symmetry was disarrayed by the strange headwear worn sideways which reminds us Mickey Mouse of course. An object’s irregular position suggests a change in the owner’s fate, it expresses obscurity. The expression “Golden Age” which is in the title of the album symbolizes satisfaction and happiness, however the mood of the accessory’s statement on the model’s head is being in opposition with this statement. The kind, cheerful Mickey Mouse’s attribute on the frightening self-distorted singer’s head who is a notorious figure in popular culture because of his attitude, rebellious song lyrics and shocking performances on stage gives him and his portrait an upfront grotesque aspect. This headwear is not apractical object, its one and only function is to be a decorative element. The pictures lack colours and have a dark background, the only difference is in the singer’s look. On Picture 8the dark background is contrasted with Manson’s white outfit and makeup. In this case the  colour white does not suggests the typical symbolical meaning: placidity and purity. On Picture 7the model wears a dark-toned mask-like makeup which makes his face more horrifying and ominous. Light-shadow effects have an excessively important role in the creating of the pictures atmosphere. The viewer could notice vividness which is not an ordinary attribute of portraits. In both of the pictures the sideways-hat assumes a previous intervention which with the decomposition and the irregularly cut parts on the left side and above of the pictures create an increased tension.
In another co-production with Manson he deals with his other main theme: children and military symbols. (2003 promotion picture) [Picture 9]. This photograph, likethe others in the series,has a story representing an action. Visualising a child, holding a weapon on Helnwein’s picture is a radical juxtaposition used by surrealist artists too. In this case he expresses childhood innocence with this shocking and contradictory image and through this humanity’s vulnerability in the face of violence. Manson was accused by several people that his aggressive, agitating song lyrics encouraged the murders of Columbine High School in Colorado State. As a response to this they’ve made the provocative, ominous photo-series.
52 URL: https://www.helnwein.com/press/english_press/article_1167-Marilyn-Manson?s=1198&sg=172
Popular culture’s elements appear in Helnwein’s works so far but in the course of the collaboration with Manson the artist steps out to the platform of this type of culture which includes rock music and the connecting forms of art for example music video, poster, stage design, album cover, etc.
In his oeuvre posters, stage and costume designs have an outstanding role to this day. In theatre works he uses eclectically his fixed attributes which are well-known from his paintings. He pays attention to the stage-play’s period and modernizes the scene authentically. The uniform-like style, blood and face covering, comic book characters return in his costume designs completed with fable-like features. The sight is unmistakeable, for the audience the stage designs appear as his paintings coming to life. During theatre works he deploys his regular technical elements such as photographs and video. (Richard Strauss –Rózsalovag; Shakespeare –Machbeth; Johann Kresnik –Der Ring des Nibelungen, stb.)

Helnwein’s photography deals with portraits of the two main artists of the Nazi Empire. On one of the photographs the sculpturer Arnold Breker holds a portrait of Joseph Beuys painted by Helnwein. Breker claimed to the artist that he didn’t make his work guided by ideologies, he didn’t have another choice but to work for the Nazis. He created sculptures ordered by Stalin also. He was the most sought-after portrait-artist after the war. He created sculptures of famous artists from different genres (e.g. the writer, Jean Cocteau, poet Ezra Pound, painter Salvador Dalí). Helnwein raises public awareness to avant-garde’s contrasts with portrait-arts guided by political ideologies through Joseph Beuys transitional appearance in homogenization.Helnwein created a portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda movie maker in 1990.
In 1988 the Austrian art historian Peter Gorsen wrote about Helnwein: “Almost all the prime manifestations of violence, such as war, torture, rape, sexual obscenity, or Fascism in its decayed historical or contemporary form, inform the emotional charge of his work. Helnwein works primarily with the trivial myths, symbols, signifiers and idols of everyday life, and has an eye for the devotional, nostalgic trappings and iconographic images of Fascism. The necrophiliac demonism of Nazi nostalgia, the military look an uniform fetishism amongst today’s youngsters complete with its sado-masochistic side, their weakness for thesupposedly >sexy< aesthetic appeal of weapons and for warlike masquerading: there are present in Helnwein’s subject matter, along with the heroic emotional gesturing of inflated feeling.”
In almost all of his works female models, aged 5-10, were painted. However they’re not represented in an ordinary way, the expressions, the looks, gestures and poses are excessively adult-like. In arts, the child’s appearance such as a symbol signifies innocence, vitality, future and opportunities. In this case the artist’s intent is to visualize the children dressed in almost military uniforms symbolizing the hurt victims of the horror of war. It refers to the period during war and the years after when a careless childhood seems a distant, inaccessible vision. The cruel, drastic real-life situation forces every child to grow up early both emotionally and physically. Traumas such as loosing a family member causes to learn how to be self-dependent, care aboutsiblings, etc. There were a lot of similar situations during the World Wars. Figures are not only embodying psychological and social anxieties, but Helnwein uses artistic forms to depict history and social traumas like World War II with national socialismor Holocaust in addition to recent forbidden issues such as molestation, domestic violence or pedophilia.

Furthermore the primary meaning of innocence which means not committing a crime according to criminological terminology, the word is a synonym of child-like simplicity and naivety. Childhood innocence represents the human being itself.Childhood innocence is a fixed issue in Helnwein’s oeuvre since the beginning. This issue was visualized in provocative situations. The innocent child became the symbolof the victim of general violence. Children aren’t able to defend themselves because of their physical weakness. Hurting them means hurting human being itself.Human being is in a vulnerable situation and it’s armless against the anti-human being.
The picture titled Murmur of the Innocents 18 [mixed media, 180x252 cm] [Picture 10], presents a little girl in profile-view wearing a uniform laying in horizontal position. The atmosphere disquiets the viewer because of the figure staring outside of theimage space. The head’s sideways position  suggests tension despite it’s ostensible calmness. The face and eyes are shaded. The position of the body and head invokes a mortuary pose. The child wears a military coat with black colour and silver decorations, suggestingthe nazi’s attire. This outfit enhances the unsettling effect of the painting too, same as the hair combed back which was the typical hairstyle in the period of the World War II. The picture is barely coloured, except the skin’s original tone,black and different shades of greys are dominant. The visible lower eyelid was painted with red which is reminiscent of the eye’s state after crying. This painting is strongly decomposed, doesn’t pay attention to the rules of classical portrait painting, the bigger, empty spaces are not in the direction of view. With this the artist alienates the character, who doesn’t concern herself with the viewer as she doesn’t look into the camera. The uniform, hairstyle, setting and composition represent Helnwein’s message: the child lost her innocence.
I would like to focus on two pictures of the Disasters of Warseries. Paintings are made by mixed media with oil and acryl. Picturenumber 47(150x122 cm) [Picture 11.]made in 2015, represents a similar element to the chosen previous series because there is a girl wearing a uniform too. However, the artist follows the rules of a portrait painting as the position of the child’s head reminds the viewer of a tabloid photo. This evokes an association to Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earringand self-portraits with classical composition, contrary to the purposely slid lying girl staring out of the composition space. The look of the two children is very analogical in hairstyle and outfit. The message of the painting is the passing of childhood innocence too.
Picture 28(2011, 201x163 cm) [Picture 12] is one of the theatrical works where the nearly attention-seeking feature, the blood, appears. For some viewers it oversteps ‘good taste’s’ boundaries. Blood such as symbol has strong expression, but in this case the material is very paint-like. The colour and the presence of the blood on the child is artificial, her skin is used as the canvas. Although the presence of violence is clear here, the figure behaves like an element ofa stage design, little bit sculpture-like. Painting over an object or a person is an essential part of the contemporary art i.e. expresses alienation. (e.g. in Viennese Actionism or Arnulf Rainer). The child appears on the painting like an object, her unnatural white skin refers to a marble sculpture, reminds the viewer of the powdered wigs and make up of the Rococo era, and it has a neo-classical impression. The girl’s red lipstick refers to growing up and losing innocence again with its strongly erotic effect.
The influence of hyperrealism as formed in America in the second half of the 60’s manifests in the pictures large sizes, cool, impersonal appearance but in opposition to hyperrealism’s everyday life-issues, Helnwein paints photos with theatrical settings.
Helnwein deals with confronting taboos, he creates his own myth through that. He creates a contra-world. He practices the feature of the popular visual world: the voyeur behaviour.He evokes hard-to-face historical eras and actual social problems connected to children. Helnwein implicitly aestheticizes the nazi art and war-mythology, despite of his intent to reject that and face the past.

In 1996 Helnwein used a computer to make the series Epiphany. The artwork is a biblical paraphrase where the central person is Madonna. One piece of the series titled Epiphany I (Adoration of the Magi) (1996. oil-acryl, canvas 210x333 cm) [Picture 14] resembles a Biblical scene. The depicted Madonna-like woman, embodies the ideal aryan woman, holding a child in her arms, resembling Jesus Christ, who has the features of Adolf Hitler. The Three Kings are wearing SS uniforms with nazi symbols and iron crosses. A high-ranked officer holds a document in his hand while a soldier inspects whether the little Hitler is circumcised or not. Helnwein creates pseudo-history, he rephrases the occurred events while he preserves the Nazi sin’s reality and formality.
Helnwein doesn’t want to make most of his works for museums and galleries, he wants to target the most wide audience. These works overreach the art scene, trying to enter social and political spheres like the avant-garde predecessors who wanted to remove the border between “art” and “life”. Helnwein’s intent is to go beyond pure aesthetics and work on the areas of everyday life. His expectation to his works is to intervene the social spheres and have an immediate direct impact.  He uses a large variety of media tools to provoke a powerful reaction from the viewer. One perfect example of that is the large poster what covered a whole office block titled I Saw This (2018, Vienna Ringturm, 4000 nm) [Picture 15]. He uses the tools of advertisement: a child standing in front of a neutral background, holding a weapon, looks like a model with a slogan above her head. The familiar form of appearance to a passer-by does not represent a positive message, it reflects a more relevant horror and terror.

Gottfried Helnwein’s oeuvre is characterized by the individual mythology that formed in the course of avantgarde’s history. Besides his paintings, his public life, lifestyle, and his carefully designed appearance have an important role.
His pseudo-mythology can be interpreted in a unipersonal reference system, where objects, persons, and materials which are important for the artist are repeated. This pseudo-myth gets his meaning and context from the artist’s imagination. Every applied instrument and symbol has an additional meaning, by which he creates his special artistic world.

Facing history in a critical and provocative way is an important feature of the oeuvre. Ruining social, historical and political taboos is the essence of his attitude. He grabs every situation, which confronts the given era’s social expectations, chooses people to collaborate with, who push the limits of social norms.
There are many contradictions connected to Helnwein’s artworks. The artist takes advantage of the already existing desire of horror in people, provokes the viewer with the popular culture’s attention-seeking mediums. Among the modern art myths provocation of wide target audience can be found as well as the desire to reach them, and to overstep the border between art and life too. Behaviour of avant-garde artists characterizes Helnwein also. Through his artworks he aims to reflect on politics and society. The tools to reaching this are the intrusive billboards and photo-installations.Triggeringimpactfrom the audience is the key. However most of his works –assumingly against his liking –can be found on the wall of galleries and museums, being a part of the elite art market.
Gottfried Helnwein’s appearance, his way of life are important parts of his oeuvre. In his carefully designed outfits he looks like a rock star. He often appears in mass media, where he gives his definite opinion about history and actual politics.
His personal appearance, cosmopolitan lifestyle go against general apprehension about the “outsider artist”, and invokes the exclusive art market’s atmosphere (which he wants to avoid according to his own claim). The contradictions in modern artists behaviour are an integral part of the contemporary art scene.

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URL: https://www.artforum.com/picks/gottfried-helnwein-432852020.03.12.
URL: https://www.helnwein.com/press/english_press/article_1167-Marilyn-Manson?s=1198&sg=1722020.04.05.23