Cover: Portrait by Gottfried Helnwein ...

"I don't spend money on coke or whores." deadpans Kevin Smith. "And I am not a big car guy with a fleet of Ferraris or anything like that. But I can get behind an indulgence like this."
The indulgence in question is towering a nine-foot-tall canvas of Smith's daughter, Harley, which hangs in the entry of his Hollywood home.
Smith commissioned the portrait two years ago from Austrian Artist Gottfried Helnwein, who is best known for his dark, noir-style paintings.
Smith admittedly wept when he finally received the work, which has since become his pride and joy - a family heirloom that is a testament to his love for his child as well as being a serious work of art. ...

Hannover (ddp-nrd). Das Wilhelm-Busch-Museum in Hannover zeigt von heute an in einer Sonderausstellung Bilder und Fotografien des österreichischen Künstlers Gottfried Helnwein. Zentrales Motiv der Schau mit dem Titel «Beautiful Children» ist das Kind. Für ihn sei das Kind ein Symbol für die Verletzlichkeit des Menschen, sagte der Künstler im Vorfeld der Schau in Hannover. Er beschäftige sich seit langem mit dem Thema der Unschuld und ihrem Missbrauch. ...

(Hannover/dpa) - Der Künstler Gottfried Helnwein stand am Freitag im Wilhelm-Busch-Museum in Hannover vor einem großformatigen Gemälde, das eine Gruppe von SS-Schergen und eine Frau mit Kind zeigt. Das Kind steht im Zentrum der Ausstellung «Beautiful Children» des umstrittenen Künstlers Helnwein. Vom 13. März bis 5. Juni sind 50 Gemälde, Zeichnungen und großformatige Fotografien des Österreichers zu sehen. Zum ersten Mal seit Jahren stellt Helnwein wieder in Deutschland aus.
Gottfried Helnwein stellt 50 seiner Werke in Hannover aus ...

Er will aufrütteln mit seiner Kunst: Gottfried Helnwein zeigt im Wilhelm-Busch-Museum 50 seiner Werke.
Das passiert nicht oft in Hannover. Da radeln die 96-Kicker Altin Lala, Robert Enke und Nebosja Krupnikovic am Sonntagvormittag am Wilhelm-Busch-Museum vorbei und niemand schenkt den Fußballern Aufmerksamkeit. Warum auch? Allenfalls Bundesligamittelmaß.
Die Blicke sind hingegen auf einen Mann gerichtet, der in einer ganz anderen Liga zu Hause ist. Gottfried Helnwein (56) spielt Champions-League. ...

Hannover. SS-Offiziere besichtigen Maria und das Jesus-Kind. Die Weisen aus dem Morgenland? Das fotorealistische Gemälde hat dem Künstler viel Ärger eingebracht, mit den Nachfahren eines der Offiziere. Verhindern konnten sie das provokante Werk aber nicht. ...

Hannover – Das Kind steht im Zentrum der Ausstellung “Beautiful Children” des umstrittenen Künstlers Gottfried Helnwein im Wilhelm-Busch-Museum Hannover. Vom 13. März bis 5. Juni sind 50 Gemälde, Zeichnungen und grossformatige Fotografien des 56 Jahre alten Österreichers zu sehen. Das Kind sei in der Kunst über Jahrhunderte vernachlässigt worden, sagte Helnwein, der erstmals nach vielen Jahren seine Arbeiten wieder in Deutschland ausstellt. ...

Wahrscheinlich hat der Schauspieler Sean Penn ja Recht: Die Welt gleiche einem Gespensterhaus, sagte er einmal, und Gottfried Helnwein sei darin unser Reiseführer. Der 1948 in Wien geborene Künstler hat die Schrecken der Wirklichkeit immer wieder in alptraumähnlicher Weise aufs Papier und die Leinwand gebracht - und sie oft auch an Kindern gezeigt. Mit entstellten, vernarbten Gesichtern sehen sie uns an. Diese malträtierten Kinder wirken ohnmächtig gegenüber der Gewalt, die man ihnen antut. ...

"Ninth November Night" documents Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein's sprawling 1988 art installation recalling the horrors of the Holocaust -- and the exhibit's defacement by vandals shortly after it was unveiled.
Directed by Henning Lohner and featuring on-camera appearances by Helnwein collectors Sean Penn and Jason Lee, the documentary short is largely the product of the passion and persistence of Malibu producer Gisela Guttman. When she struggled to find a venue in Los Angeles willing to show Helnwein's large-scale installation, she decided to make a documentary instead.
The art installation, which revolves around a series of pictures of small children, was vandalized after its initial showing in Germany.
"The one thing I wanted to do is just be sure that people can see the entire installation, I just really wanted to bring it to Los Angeles, no matter how," Guttman said. "The power of those images really comes across on-screen, and that's what I wanted people to see and to think about." ...

"Ninth November Night," the Holocaust remembrance documentary which debuted in Malibu last August in its New Malilbu Theatre engagement to qualify for Academy Award consideration, will be a featured entry in the AFI Film Festival Saturday (Nov. 13) and Sunday (Nov. 14.)
Produced by Malibu artist and curator Gisela Guttman with director/composer Henning Lohner, the film concerns Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein's lifelong dedication to artworks perpetuating awareness of Holocaust attrocities.
The documentary recently was a prize-winner at the Ojai Film Festival and is invited to the Nagoya Film Festival to be held next June as part of the World Expo in Japan as well as to the Calgary (Canada) Festival which honors films of humanitarian outreach. ...

Dance icon Gregor Seyffert, and Gottfried Helnwein, internationally renowned artist and stage designer, came up with a highly intelligent concept for the oratorio, which relied heavily on dance, but also comprised whatever means a modern, multimedia stage design might offer. Consequently, the audience’s eyes almost popped out of their heads. With all the media activities, one might almost forget the enchanting, beautiful music, and singing.

Storming, unceasing applause by an enthusiastic Düsseldorf audience for an evening which is unlikely to be easily forgotten. This was an example of lively music theatre, which, unchallenged, not only stole the glory of Deutsche Oper am Rhein, which presently enjoys a period of profound hibernation, but proved that Düsseldorf may well offer first class art. Why not more often?
(Peter Bilsing) ...

Gottfried Helnwein’s exhibit titled The Child at San Francisco’s California Palace of the Legion of Honor testifies that the past cannot be erased from the minds of those who had lived through it, not even from the consciousness of those yet to be born: Helnwein was born three years after the death of Hitler, and yet his watercolor painting depicting the "Fuhrer" with two little girls in white dresses communicates not only sarcasm but horror and revulsion. For Hitler is not the painting’s main subject but rather these girls that have already undergone a dehumanizing initiation, these children whose gaze makes their parents shrink.
What you will see in the halls of the Legion of Honor will make you shudder.
Undoubtedly, Helnwein anticipates that reaction, and, yes, he deliberately makes you go through this ordeal, but just as undoubtedly (and therein lies his strength) Gottfried Helnwein puts himself through the same ordeal.

...

Первое, что спросил у меня Готфрид Хельнвейн когда мы познакомились – о моём детстве. Было ли у меня счастливое детство? То есть буквально этими словами хотя и по-английски.
Тот пласт русского языка, в котором живёт моё поколение, отзывается на подобный вопрос мгновенно: “Спасибо товарищу Сталину за наше счастливое детство!” ...

The recent landscape show by Gottfried Helnwein at the Crawford Gallery in Cork contained a homage to Friedrich’s The Wreck of the Hope, while the current Walker & Walker exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy features a three-dimensional recreation of his work Wanderer in the Mist. Because it is a show culled from the extensive collection of Berlin’s Nationalgalerie, A German Dream does not include these two key works, both of which are in Hamburg’s Kunsthalle, but the six works that are included still offer a tantalising taster. They point the way to understanding Friedrich’s iconic idealism and energy, but what they highlight even more pointedly is the need for a comprehensive retrospective of the artist’s work. ...

Marilyn Manson: "Gottfried Helnwein whom I collaborated with a lot invited us to get married at one of his castles in either Germany or Ireland," Manson said. "So we thought we would just have the pageantry and the ceremony of a normal wedding, but without the church. Because I don't think that I would really be welcome there." ...

News: Ihr letztes Video "sAINT" wurde in den USA verboten. Warum?
Manson: Weil ich keine künstlerischen Kompromisse eingehen wollte und daher das dunkelste, intimste und furchtloseste Video meiner Laufbahn kreiert habe. ich habe sogar selbst die Kosten dafür getragen, um unabhängig zu bleiben.
Das Video hat mich an den Rand eines Nervenzusammenbruchs gebracht.
NEWS: Wie haben Sie sich davon wieder erholt?
Manson: Mein Mentor in allen künstlerischen Belangen, der österreichische Künstler Gottfried Helnwein hat mich daran erinnert, dass die einzige Medizin dagegen Kreativität ist, die aus dem Herzen kommt.
Als ich wieder zu arbeiten begann, war ich geheilt. ...

Austrian-born and educated and now living Los Angeles, Helnwein employs a hyperrealist manner that will remind Americans of Gerhard Richter but, if anything, works to opposite effect. Rather than re-confirm post-modernist cynicism, Helnwein rekindles post-war anguish. This selection, going back more than three decades, emphasizes his preoccupation with the image of the child, from early Nitsch- and Schwarzkogler-influenced photo-actions (with the requisite bandages) to recent large portrait-like heads and depictions of Christ-child-like babes attracting odd, menacing crowds. A perverse streak runs through the images, but it’s not pederasty: tinged with surrealism, it’s an enduring shame and anger at the Nazi past – and the artist’s suspicion that Naziism hasn’t been eradicated. ...

In the film "Ninth November Night," painter Gottfried Helnwein describes his first encounter with Jewish people during his childhood in Austria after the war, a bleak and dark period, one, he says, with no singing, no laughter. He was nine years old when he saw the two people walking down the street, very close together, walking quickly, looking down the whole time.
Helnwein became intrigued and wanted to know who they were. He asked everyone, all the adults, "Who are they?" But no one wanted to answer. Finally, someone said the word, one that he remembers the person had great difficulty saying - "Jews." ...

The film tells the story of famed Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein, obsessed with a mission to use his art to preserve the memory of Holocaust persecutions. ...

Er begeistert Kalifornien:
Tausende strömen in die Ausstellung des Österreichischen Malers Gottfried Helnwein im Fine Arts Museum San Francisco.
Helnweins Schaffen wird überall leidenschaftlich diskutiert. Viele bewundern seine aggressiven Bilder, manche sind empört, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hat ihm erst kürzlich einen Sitz im Kunst-Beirat des Bundesstaates Kalifornien angeboten. ...