Gottfried Helnwein - Selbstportrait, 1983.
Stanley Kubrick - 2001, A Space Odyssey, USA 1968; Intro
Barnett Newman - Here III, 1965/66, Broken Obelisk, 1967
Thomas Gainsborough - Plauderei im Park, ca. 1746,
Jean-Honoré Fragonard - Die Schaukel, 1767,
Caspar David Friedrich - Der Mönch am Meer, 1808-10, Öl/Lw, Das Eismeer, 1823-24
Karl Friedrich Schinckel - Felsentor, 1818,
J.M. William Turner - Eine Lawine in Graubünden, 1810 ...

"Well, the world is a haunted house, and Helnwein at times is our tour guide through it.
I think in anything that is really relevant and emotional art, there is some kind of a mirror that people experience. I don't think that you can recognize a feeling from something that you look at unless it's part of yourself, and so when someone is willing to take on the sadness, the irony, the ugliness and the beauty in the kind of way that Gottfried Helnwein does.
Not all of Gottfried's work is on a canvas.
A lot of it is the way he's approached life. And it doesn't take someone knowing him to know that. You take one look at the paintings and you say "this guy has been around." You can't sit in a closet - and create this.
This level of work is earned."
Sean Penn ...

* Gottfried Helnwein, artist, born in Vienna, 1948
* Theodor Herzl "founder" of Israel, lived most of his life in Austria
* Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933-1945, born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn ...

Helnwein:
"I think art always reflects the society and the time the artist lives in; it always tells you something about the condition of the culture.
This is the age of materialism and profit, accompanied by its favorite all-eating pet – the entertainment industry. Therefore in order not to sink into oblivion, in a desperate struggle to be heard and seen, many artists and curators try to compete with this multi-media-entertainment-Godzilla, trying to be just as loud and cheap and stupid. That’s why 70% to 80% of all the contemporary art in our museums is crap.
It’s true though that each time has its own aesthetic values and if you want to reach the people of today you have to develop an artistic language that they can understand. And that’s what I try to do – my audience is the great love-affair of my life. I am obsessed with my public, and all I want to do with my art is touch them and move them and to hold them tight – and sometimes I want to kick their ass. That is all I care about.
But I also listen to them and take them and their responses serious, because they and other artists are the only ones that ever taught me anything." ...

...

Dans mon récit, j’ai l’intention de présenter des œuvres de Gottfried Helnwein dans lesquelles il aborde le sujet du nazisme. Cependant, même si le rapport au nazisme dans l’œuvre d’Helnwein est au cœur de ma propre curiosité, il n’est pas nécessairement au centre du travail de l’artiste. D’après ma compréhension, la référence au thème du nazisme dans l’œuvre d’Helnwein fait partie d’un contexte plus vaste de sa vision du monde, que je vais présenter. Si on ignore la totalité de son œuvre et si on se concentre uniquement sur ces nombreux travaux où il parle du nazisme, on risque d’avoir une vision partielle de plusieurs niveaux d’analyse qui sont inhérents à sa pensée. Je vais traiter non seulement les sujets qu’il a choisis d’aborder, mais aussi le contexte historique de sa création qui est aussi significatif en regard de ses choix. Pour des raisons de clarté et afin de mettre en relief mon intérêt personnel pour la représentation controversée du nazisme dans l’art contemporain, je vais traiter séparément les œuvres au sujet du nazisme, sans ignorer naturellement le contexte de leur création. ...

Si on essaie de comprendre la démarche artistique et critique d’Helnwein, il est nécessaire de prendre en considération ses autoportraits. Les autoportraits sont partis intégrale de sa carrière depuis le début, et forment une clé importante pour déchiffrer de son œuvre.
“ L’artiste et son art ne font qu’un dans l’autoportrait. Ils s’expliquent, ils se répondent ”, comme l’a écrit Philippe Dagen. Si on ignore les nombreux autoportraits de Helnwein, on risque de laisser passer inaperçus les messages les plus profonds et capitaux que l’artiste transmet par son art.
...

Indifférence et reniement sont les mots clés dans une république qui se présente comme la “ première victime ” du nazisme. Lors de la Seconde République autrichienne on préfère ignorer et effacer la joie et l’acceptation du fameux “ Anschluss ”, l’annexion de l’Autriche à l’Allemagne en mars 1938, quand les troupes allemandes sont entrées en Autriche sans rencontrer aucune résistance. Le fait que Hitler ait été accueilli comme un libérateur par 200,000 personnes à Vienne est un détail réprimé dans un pays qui essaye de réhabiliter son prestige, son économie et son infrastructure. L’Autriche libre, démocratique et indépendante établit vite sa stabilité politique et même sa prospérité.
Dans la Seconde République autrichienne, la liquidation du passé nazi n’est pas radicale : les anciens adhérents du parti nazi sont vite réintégrés dans la plupart des secteurs de la société. ...

Hay de decidirse a creer” (Aira. 51), telenovelas rasas que, en la Buenos Aires de Iris Nieves, “al mismo tiempo que eran de una extravagancia demente, debían ser muy banales, muy esquemáticas, simplificaciones brutales de la realidad, a la medida del más amplio de los públicos” (ib.), Bandagen-Aktionen y hielmos de vendas echándoselas de parificadas por idolatría de lo sobrante sobresaliente y sacrificio de fisonomía en estrictura uniforme, divinamente previsible autosuficiencia de la epidermis (v. Gottfried Helnwein, Marlene, acuarela sobre cartón, 1983) arrugada y rajada en corola de brochazo florecido sin arte ni parte mientras el hombrecito espera el autobús clavándose un Crazy Red 13 (Jolie de Vogue - Nail Polish, Laboratorios de Cosméticos Vogue, Bogotá) de lápiz tan amargo cuanto la mancha del girasol azteca que tiene encima (v. Helnwein, Artaud’s Song, óleo y pastel, 1989), a fin de enganchar la dolorosa cantilena del espinazo, claro está, obscurísimo, espejeante, otro reflejo succionado por faz definida en gasa alquitranosa, ocultos los bulbos oculares, sin tenedor edípico, la gula de sí brillando apenas en el fiel salivar de una tarántula metálica metida en la boca, quizás dispositivo quirúrgico cuya función habitual debería consistir en mantener separados los tejidos, doble erina en el lugar repugnante de lo que ni se come ni se saca, freno o bocado al borde de motes engolados, orzuelo oral, no el tumorcito del párpado sino esa especie de cepo que se utiliza para cazar fieras por los pies (v. Helnwein, Black Mirror V, Cibachrome, 1987). ...

特集／ゴス
2003年9月1日刊行
translation■山川純子／Sumiko Yamakawa
translation supervision■青木直子／Naoko Aoki

Helnwein:
アートは常に、作者の生きている社会や時代を反映し、その文化をめぐる状況について何かを語っているものだと私は考えています。現代は物質主義と利潤追求の時代であり、すべてを食い尽くす娯楽産業は時代の寵児です。
ですからアーティストもキュレーターも、忘却の海に沈まぬよう、聞いてもらい見てもらおうと、必死でこのマルチメディア娯楽の怪物と必死に格闘するため、怪物と同じくらい騒々しく安っぽく愚かでいなくてはならないのです。
だから美術館におさめられた現代美術の作品の7、8割はくだらないものなのです。とはいえ、それぞれの時代は、時代ごとの美的価値を持っていることも事実であり、この時代の観衆によく伝えたいと思えば、彼らにとってわかりやすい美術言語を創り出さなければなりません。
それが私のやっていることなのです。「観客は私の生涯の恋人です」と言うほど、私は公衆に取りつかれています。私は作品によって、観客のみなさんに触れ、抱きしめ、心を揺さぶり、ときにはお尻を蹴飛ばしたい。私が専ら考えているのはこのようなことなのです。
またいっぽう、私も観客の声を聴き、真剣に受けとめます。なぜなら観客やほかのアーティストだけが私に何かを教えてくれる人々ですから。
このプロセスを、進行形の相互学習と呼んでもいいと思います。
私は観衆が私の意図を誤解したとか曲解したと思ったことは全くありません。愚劣で尊大な一部の美術批評家や「権威」は、たいてい私の意図が理解できないのです。
それにしても、こういう権威をかさに着た自称専門家たちが、私の作品を受け入れ、もてはやすことがあったら、それはさぞ怖いでしょうね。 ...

Blending Art and Music:
With the The Golden Age of Grotesque, Manson has attempted something not seen since Disney's unusual masterwork, Fantasia. Fantasia, the collaboration between Walt Disney and Leopold Stokowski, was Disney's first attempt to combine low art (his animation) with high art (classical music).
Manson's collaboration with world renown artist Gottfried Helnwein can be viewed in the same way: a combination of low art (rock music) with high art (painting). Manson was well aware of this, as he mentioned to NY Rock, "We grew up with the idea that entertainment is some lesser form of art, less valuable, less sincere, less worthy of our attention. I don't agree with it at all." ...

While Brown shares many interests with the surrealist Hans Bellmer (dolls, lolitas and bondage), the only other analogies within the world of contemporary art can be found in the early watercolours portraying bandaged children by Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein and in the freak children sculptures by the Chapman brothers, besides the few artists (including Damien Hirst and Mark Ryden) that Brown declared to esteem.
(excerpt) ...

For me, the real highpoint of Conversations is the 1992 interview with Gottfried Helnwein, the Austrian-born creative genius whom Donald Ault has justly called "One of the greatest conceptual artists of the past hundred years."
His interview engages Barks in a spirit of imagination and play, and Barks responds to it: What if there were a real Duckworld? What would its layout be?
If anyone can take this idea into the 21st century in current available media, it's Helnwein, whose surreal Duck portraits reveal a dark undercurrent probably always present to one degree or other in Barks's own work—Helnwein's ducks are surreal, haunting, yet strangely funny at the same time. A parody of the dark side of the comic, the work reminds one of Chris von Allsburg, WeeGee, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, others. And this is just where the influence is most obvious, in paintings of Donald Duck. ...

The Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein is well aware of the discomfort the public feels when confronted with images of children not represented as innocents but to whom a powerful sexual identity (and an awareness) is designated. In his work, and especially his paper drawings, he has created some of the most powerful and disturbing representations of abused childhood in history of art. We are not talking about the form of abuse commonly described in the penal code. By altering or removing the inbred pulsation that spurs us to stubbornly refuse or deny what we do not recognise, the manipulations and interferences (The Intrusion) adults perform on the social body of childhood are denounced. ...

Vanessa Beecroft, VALIE EXPORT, Nan Goldin, Andreas Gursky, Ilse Haider, GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN, Birgit Jürgenssen, Marie-Jo Lafontaine,Tracey Moffatt, Thomas Ruff, Shirin Neshat, Anne & Patrick Poirier, Lois Renner, Eva Schlegel, Sean Scully, Cindy Sherman, Thomas Struth, és Rosemarie Trockel
2003. március 14 – június 1. ...

Gottfried Helnwein's extensive 1997 retrospective at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg gave visitors an overview of his work going back to his street actions in Vienna in the 1970s, his grimacing iconic self-portraits that suggest self-mutilation, and on to his menacing canvases depicting the evils of the Third Reich.
He has worked as a painter. draftsman, photographer, muralist, sculptor and performance artist. His work is consistently concerned with psychological anxiety.
In his new series of paintings, done in somber monochrome blues, he continues to work with singulae sense of suspense and mystery. ...

teatrenacional.com > Llistat d'obres de teatre > Kleines Helnwein, Rodrigo M. Malmsten ...

Zielsetzung: Der im Unterricht der Qualifikationsphase vertieft zu behandelnde thematische Schwerpunkt 1 "Bilder vom Menschen" gibt u.a. die Auseinandersetzung mit "Bildern der Entfremdung" und die Inszenierung der menschlichen Figur vor. Bezüge zu dem thematischen Schwerpunkt 2 sind insbesondere durch die für Helnwein charakteristische Einbindung der menschlichen Figur in Raumzusammenhänge gegeben. Eine Annäherung an das Werk Helnweins soll in kritischer Auseinandersetzung mit dem sich in den Arbeiten manifestierenden Menschenbild erfolgen. Möglichkeiten einer Übertragung der Strategien Helnweins auf den Unterricht sollen hinterfragt und Unterrichtsgänge in der Ausstellung vorbereitet werden. ...

...To this day, there is still controversy over when to operate on these fixed nasal deformities acquired during midfacial growth. The painting by Helnwein, entitled "Mean Child", depicts a terrified child who has just undergone a reconstructive operation to form a new nose from a frontal flap (Fig. 46). Blood drips from the tubes projecting from the reconstructed nose. A purulent scrap of granulation is seen in the left medial canthus, while a fresh scar from which the sutures have just been removed stretches from the angle of the mouth to the left ear. The flowered wallpaper in the background contains these words: disobedience allowed, taking pleasure in punishments, unchaste things, and other words which are connected with lines to the pathological alterations in the face. Do these harken back to the mediaeval belief that sickness is a punishment for greater or lesser human failings?

Artists:
George Grosz, Gottfried Helnwein, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, William Hogarth, Otto Dix, Velásques, Hans Holbein the Younger, Bernard van Orley, Vrubel, Jacob Jordaens, Juan Carreno de Miranda, George Catlin, Jan Provoost, Honoré Daumier , Heinrich Zille, Wilhelm Busch, , Gaetano Guilio Zumbo, Manfred Deix, Simone Martini, Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, Marc Chagall, Chicotot, Laurence Sterne, Utamaro, Ferdinand Bol, Master of the Wenemaer Triptych, Liberale da Verona, Jules Lenepveu, Alexandrowitsch Wssjewoloshskij, and Ancient Egypt-, Phoenician-, Roman-, Greek- and Mayan -artists.
...

Art Direction: Gottfried Helnwein
Editing and primary director of photography:
Benjamin at the Barbarian Group
Second camera: Charles Koutris
Location: studio Helnwein, Los Angeles ...