Listen. I tried very hard to think up both a concise and comprehensive bio about Gottfried Helnwein, the artist whose work is featured exclusively throughout our debut album, but it is virtually impossible to wrap my tiny arms around this guy's legacy in one email. And it'd be an insult to try. So I'll just say the following, and let your pending curiosty to explore his body of work speak the rest:
Mark my words, someday Helnwein will immortally reside in art history textbooks, right next to Van Gogh and Warhol. ...

Sehr geehrter Herr Gottfried Helnwein! Ich habe heute zum ersten mal ihre Werke gesehen! Bisher kann ich nicht daran glauben! Das ist unsagbar. Die Geschichte Ihres Lebens und Ihrer Arbeit sieht gross aus! Ja, ich muss sagen - ich bin getoetet. Ich aber immer wollte solchen Tod ueberleben. Nach diesem Tod kann ich die Wahrheit dieses Lebens fuehlen. Und jetzt meine Seele macht seinen Himmelfahrt.
Dank Ihrer Schaffung die groesste Wande fallen und kann man etwas neues und gutes, auch etwas besseres in unserem Leben eintragen! ...

This is the first art history that analyzes the use of Disney imagery by such artists as Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Warhol, Chagoya, Thiebaud, Helnwein, Boltanski, Dion, Pesanto, Ospina, Finley and many more. This book explores the impact of Disney, including artists’ economic and psychological motivations, on contemporary art. Disney refused permission for any images - their and artists. ...

gottfried helnwein is really amazing the shit out of me right now. I mean who else can manage to be grotesque and still classy and inspiring? i mean this is the first stranger/artist that really wants to make me sit down and pick his brains and fall in love with his ingenuity. everything about his art is incredible, right down to the titles.
i mean you really have to see this ...

...the last room was dedicated to contemporary artists with really good choices, there's even a Warhol Donald Duck canvas, and also a beautiful piece of Gottfried Helnwein which I happen to have been loving for years, "American Prayer". ...

I went to the Denver Art Museum today to see the newly opened expansion and in particular, the Radar collection. Very inspiring work, I have to say they are the most interesting and provocative pieces I've seen on display in Denver, ever. My favorite pieces were the works by Damien Hirst and the "Adoration of the Magi" by Gottfried Helnwein. ...

Gottfried Helnwein's Epiphany (Adoration of the Magi) is a strange takeoff on a traditional New Testament theme in art. The work depicts a Madonnalike mother displaying her baby to attentive Nazi officers, Painted in hyperrealist grisaille with chiaroscuro effects, the work resembles an old documentary photograph made huge. The eerie, sinister overtones are unmistakable. Who is this mother? What do these officers want with her and her child? What kind of official paper might the officer on the left hold in his hand and what might be its result? Helnwein, characteristically, presents us with an ambiguous, haunting image and leaves us to wonder about its meaning...
With its huge size, hyperrealist style, and disturbing content, this unsettling work bestows a psychological anxiety accompanied by a strong magnetic pull. Confronting it, we tend to stare-entranced by both its beauty and its seductive, malevolent overtones... ...

Adoration of the Magi (1496) by Filippino Lippi - Epiphany (Adoration of the Magi) 1996 by Gottfried Helnwein.
If you noticed the completion dates, you would be correct to count 500 years difference between them. Considering Helnwein body of work, I don't think his 1996 completion date is entirely coincidental. Is there a meaning behind the date? Probably, but you will have to ask him. On the other hand, there were quite a few "Adoration of Magi" paintings and I am just putting too much thought into the two I found the most interesting. But then again, art is very subjective and I have chosen to give meaning to these two works of art and hence find the 500 years relevant. ...

{i am a madwoman right now. soon enough i'll burn out/fade away.}
{& yes, this was a school assignment, so kill me.} ...

THE SYMBOLISM OF GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN ...

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He just crashed very high into my favorite painters ever list. So impressive, check out the rest of his work here.
::update:: Well maybe you're better off NOT to check it, at least not the stuff before 2005. The 2005 stuff I LOVE.
But the stuff before that, maybe a matter of taste, but I just discovered he also made really sick disturbing stuff that's just sick sick sick that I think is just so disturbing I don't even want to link it here (it's at his watercolors section "the intrusion", most specifically, well most of that page in general actually.). Why!? Whyyy? How can that be! ...

целую, князь ([info]activatemorlack) wrote, @ 2006-06-10 01:48:00 ...

Konsequent und virtuos. Technische Meisterschaft und auch die Konsequenz einer packenden sozialkritischen Thematik offenbaren sich in dieser Ausstellung: Gewalt, Schmerz, Verletzung werden dargestellt. Den Körper ebenso wie die Psyche betreffend. Helnwein dokumentiert hier in Linz einen künstlerischen Reifegrad, der eine weitere Steigerung kaum vorstellbar macht. Seine Eingriffe sind von einer schmerzhaften Unmittelbarkeit, deren emotionale Energie weit über die großen Bildformate hinaus den Raum und sein Publikum ergreift. (Irene Judmayer - Oberösterreichische Nachrichten) ...

ALL CONTENT © NICK KUSHNER 2006
EXCLUDING IMAGES BY GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN ...

Heute hatte ich besuch. Weiblichen besuch, hübsch und gut riechend, also eine wahre sinnesfreude in meinem doch eher grauen leben ;-) . Sie war das erste mal bei mir. Die aufräumaktionen der letzten wochen hatten also doch noch einen externen sinn.
Sie verlangte gleich meine Helnwein-monographie zu sehen. Das ist doch schonmal ein grund sich zu verlieben. Da ich beziehungen meide und sie ohnehin vergeben ist, habe ich das einfach mal sein lassen. ...

Gestern war ich endlich mit meiner Mutter im Lentos und diese Ausstellung war mit Abstand die beste, die ich bis jetzt gesehen habe. Provokant, schockierend und absolut faszinierend.
Ich bin vollkommen perplex und sprachlos.
Wer es noch nicht getan hat und eventuell die Möglichkeit hat, sieht sich bitte diese Ausstellung an.
Und am besten macht ihr es wie meine Mutter und fragt eine der Museumsaufsichtsdamen, war fast wie eine Führung. Sie hat uns wirlich viel erzählt und das war auch nötig, denn ohne vorige Recherche oder Führung findet man nicht den Zugang zu den Bildern, bzw. findet man einen anderen, einen besseren, wenn man weiß was er damit ausdrücken will. ...

Gottfried Helnwein, Österreichischer Künstler, vor Jahren nach Los Angeles ausgewandert, heute in Irland zu Hause. Gegen den Strom-Schwimmer, Realist, Manson-Freund. Wer seine Werke sehen möchte:
Lentos Museum, Linz - www.lentos.at ...

Drei Topfilme über den Starkünstler Gottfried Helnwein - darunter eine brandneue, 2006 entstandene Dokumentation.
19.00 Uhr "Der Provokateur" von C. Teissig, 2006 (45 min.)
20.00 Uhr "Helnwein" von Peter Hajek, 1984 (45 min.)
21.00 Uhr "Neunter November Nacht", 2003 (25 min.) Dokumentation über Helnweins Aufsehen erregende Kölner Aktion zum 50. Jahrestag der "Reichskristallnacht" ...

I have a few weeks to choose my destination for my next University year.
PLEASE GIVE YOUR OPINION!!!
Both cities are the capitals of the countries, both are beautiful, both have a big history behind them & I'm in love with both of them.
VIENNA:
It's the city of Beethoven, Strauss, Falco, Klimt, Hundertwasser, Helnwein, Kaiser Franz-Joseph, Sissi, Sigmund Freud, ... It's the country of Mozart, Swarovski, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Schubert, Haydn, ....
Main language: German
It's the 4th most visited city in Europe. ...