exhibition-cataogue
..A clarity of vision in his subject matter was emerging in Helnwein's art that was to stay consistent throughout his career. His subject matter was the human condition. The metaphor for his art, although it included self-portraits, was dominated by the image of the child, but not the carefree innocent child of popular imagination. Helnwein instead created the profoundly disturbing yet compellingly provocative image of the wounded child. The child scarred physically and the child scarred emotionally from within. ...

On Sunday, November 9, at 7:00 p.m. the Museum of Tolerance commemorates the 65th anniversary of the infamous 1938 Nazi “Night of Broken Glass” (Kristallnacht) pogrom which targeted 1,000 synagogues in Germany and Austria and marked the beginning of the end of European Jewry.
The commemoration is highlighted by the screening of a documentary by renowned Austrian artist, Gottfried Helnwein, 9th November Night, who has committed himself and his art to reminding the world of the Holocaust. The documentary is based upon his 1988 exhibit of seventeen children’s portraits that were displayed in commemoration of Kristallnacht in Cologne, Germany. Just days into the exhibit, these portraits were vandalized.. “The fury with which the neo-nazis reacted to these portraits is understandable inasmuch as it is the very same fury with which they have for years been fighting against The Diary of Anne Frank,” said famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. “The murder of children rouses abhorrence and conflict in every human, whether they are motivated by ideology or insanity. The urge to destroy has survived; the portraits bear witness to its rage.” ...

"Helnwein's meticulous Irish landscapes, which are the cornerstone of this Crawford show, are unashamedly aesthetic: gorgeous confections of pure, delicious spectacle. The typically epic but not inhuman scale imitates the subject matter. The tonal realism will make people go "Wow, are they paintings?" - thanks to the photorealist finish which seems free of the foibles of the human hand. Helnwein works with very small brushes - highlighting and subtly magnifying here, muting colours or creating shadows there; pushing some paintings towards momentary sleights of impressionism; and others towards seamless, burnished hyperreality. The bird's eye view suggests a kind of superhuman vision which can simultaneously take in the entire view with breath-taking clarity, like some bionic eagle."
Mic Moroney, from the essay "Out of the Apocalypse into the Sublime - bursting into Irish Landscape: Citizen Helnwein" ...

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Es gibt gewichtige Gründe, um Helnwein als den legitimen Erben Beuys und Warhols zu bezeichnen. Einerseits folgt er in seinen Werken rituellen Mustern, andererseits spielt er mit einer Reihe von künstlerischen Variationen. Er untergräbt die Magie der Bilderwelt, indem er einen Störfaktor einbaut, durch den ein Schock im Verhältnis zwischen dem Kunstwerk und dem Betrachter entsteht. Helnwein vermischt Altes mit Neuem, und sein Stil spiegelt den Beginn der Moderne, aber auch die Welt des Cyberspace wieder. Einen großen Einfluss hat das Wien der sechziger Jahre auf ihn. Auch wird er von der Welt des Comics inspiriert. Helnwein besuchte die 'Höhere Graphische Bundeslehr- und Versuchsanstalt'. Um gegen die tägliche Routine des Klassenzimmers zu protestieren, schnitt er sich mit einer Rasierklinge die Hände auf. Durch diesem Vorfall wurde ihm bewußt, wie hilflos die Gesellschaft auf körperliche Ungerechtigkeit und auf Verletzungen reagiert. Nach dem Abschluss an der 'Graphischen' besuchte er die Wiener Akademie der Künste. Zu dieser Zeit tauchte auch zum ersten mal eines seiner Leitmotive auf: Kinder. Durch das Malen von verletzten Kindern verursachte Helnwein eine Art Schock, und brachte somit den 'Horror' zurück in die Kunst. Damit zeigte er offen den Zynismus einer Gesellschaft, die nicht mehr die Dinge so sieht, wie sie sind, dessen Sichtweise aber durch 'Bilder über Dinge' geprägt ist. ...

"...When I look at a work of Art I ask myself: does it challenge me, does it touch, move or inspire me? Do I learn something from it, does it startle or amaze me - do I get excited, upset?
That is the test any artwork has to pass: can it create an emotional impact on a human being even when he has no education or any information about art? I’ve always had a problem with art that you can only understand if you have a degree in art history, and I have a problem with theories in general. Most of them are bullshit anyway. Most critics and theorists have little respect for artists, and I think the importance of theory in art is totally overrated. Real art is self-evident. Real art is intense, challenging, enchanting, exciting and unsettling; it has a quality and magic that you cannot explain. Like the Blues, a poem of Rimbaud or Rembrandt's late self-portraits. Art is not logic, and if you really want to experience it, your mind and rational thinking will be of little help. Art is something spiritual that you can only experience with your senses, your heart, your soul. Think of Bob Dylan, Hendrix, Mozart, Howling Wolf, Goya, Bukowski or Robert Crumb - do you need to know the theories that some busybodies might attach to their art in order to experience it?
Marcel Duchamp said: "The work of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from the bipolar action gives birth to something - like electricity."
These two poles is all you need. ...

group show
Gottfried Helnwein, Thomas Struth, Marie-Lo Lafontaine, Nan Goldin, Vanessa Beecroft, Sean Scully and others
Exhibition catalogue:
Catalogue German / English with contributions by Gabriele Bösch,
Christine Frisinghelli, Rainer Igla / Michael Mauracher,
Edelbert Köb, Lois Renner and Eva Schlegel
The exhibition includes around 85 works from the collection's holdings
and several loans, selected by Gabriele Bösch from the perspective of photo/art. Many of the photographic works owned by the collection are now showcased for the first time and put into a traditional painting context,
thereby inviting an exciting discourse between painting and photography.
...

Shakespeare Survey is a yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production. Since 1948 Survey has published the best international scholarship in English and many of its essays have become classics of Shakespeare criticism. ...

Der Schrei im Selbstbildnis als Gesellschaftskritik -
Wohl kein autoporträtatives Schaffen ist in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts derart mit einer expressiven Gesellschaftskritik, mit einer Anklage verbunden, wie das von Gottfried Helnwein. Der Künstler macht sich um einer schonungslosen Aussage willen zum schreienden, zum stellvertretend leidenden Objekt seiner Bilder: „Ich will mit meinen Bildern und Aktionen die Menschen aus ihrer Eingefrorenheit lösen, wenn auch nur eine Sekunde lang, will sie verunsichern und zu spontanen Reaktionen hinreißen. Verunsichern, aber nicht destruktiv. Die logische Denkfähigkeit soll zugunsten totaler Selbstöffnung kurz trocken gelegt werden“, stellte der österreichische Maler, Grafiker und Aktionskünstler Gottfried Helnwein zur Intention seines Werkes fest. ...

exhibition-catalogue ...

"This album is about expression. The imagination and personality of the individual cannot be trapped by small minds or defined by any one person. The genious of arts finds sanctuary among children and madmen to survive. That is who we are."
Marilyn Manson has collaborated with Gottfried helnwein for the album's artwork which is part of a greater series that will be published in a book and exhibited in museums across the world. ...

Disney artist Carl Barks (1901-2000) created one of Walt Disney's most famous characters, Scrooge McDuck. Barks also produced more than 500 comic book stories. His work is ranked among the most widely circulated, best-loved, and most influential of all comic book art.
Although the images he created are known virtually everywhere, Barks was an isolated storyteller, living in the desert of California and preferring to labor without public fanfare during most of his career.
The influence of Barks's work on such filmmakers as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and on such artists as Gottfried Helnwein has extended Barks's significance far beyond the boundaries of comics. ...

(Katalog)
36 Seiten, Heft, farbig. BxH: 24,5x30,5cm. Cobra museum voor moderne kunst 2004.
Sprache: Niederländisch, Englisch
Katalog der Ausstellung 'Donald Duck 70 jaar jong!' in Amstelveen, 2004. Texte und Bilder zu Donald Duck, Kaj Stenvall, Gottfried Helnwein und Carl Barks. Beilage: faksimilierte Reprint-Ausgaben der Nummern 1 (1952) und 2500 des holländischen Magazins Donald Duck, een vrolijk Weekblad. ...

Cover: painting "Mouse I" by Gottfried Helnwein ...

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How can one recount the Holocaust? That is certainly one of the major questions confronting any writer who tries to write on this theme. How is one to transform the horrific and inconceivable reality into fiction? How can one create a feeling of aunthenticity in the reader? How to disturb his emotional world without resorting to sentimental manipulation and how to avoid banality? ... ...

... Gottfried Helnwein, and a guy named Paul who ran the first real magazine I wrote for when I was twenty. None of them are musicians, but each of them taught me about persona, conception, manipulation, and the manifestation of what is ... ...

Putting Holes into Happiness,
Kneel down humble men and become the height of our children. Let your heart crawl into your knee and realize that all knowledge lives through imagination. This is the nursery business, always get a photocopy. Our cultures may continue to disintegrate but we just rebuild with abusement parks, filming the process and replaying it as situation comedy. We wear ribbons, hold hands, celebrate and concentrate on camps that train our kindergartens to shout out "star-spangled" banter.
We will medicate the lunacy of "degenerate" art with heavy doses of old-fashioned (original recipe) family virtues. "Let's make sure all of these offensive forms of entertainment are shown publicly, and burned immediately as a warning to us all!" ...

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