Gottfried Helnwein
Encyclopedia
Gottfried Helnwein is an Austrian-Irish fine artist, painter
, photographer
, installation
and performance artist.
Helnwein studied at the University of Visual Art in Vienna (Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Wien
). He was awarded the Master-class prize of the University of Visual Art, Vienna, the Kardinal-König prize and the Theodor-Körner prize.
He has worked as a painter, draftsman, photographer, muralist, sculptor, installation and performance artist, using a wide variety of techniques and media.
His early work consists mainly of hyper-realistic
watercolors, depicting wounded children, as well as performances – often with children – in public spaces. Helnwein is concerned primarily with psychological and sociological anxiety, historical issues and political topics. As a result of this, his work is often considered provocative and controversial.
Viennese
-born Helnwein is part of a tradition going back to the 18th century, to which Messerschmidt's
grimacing sculptures belong. One sees, too, the common ground of his works with those of Hermann Nitsch
and Rudolf Schwarzkogler
, two other Viennese, who display their own bodies in the frame of reference of injury, pain, and death. One can also see this fascination for body language goes back to the expressive gesture in the work of Egon Schiele
.
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 is the human condition. The metaphor for his art, although it included self-portraits, is 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.
In 2004, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
organized the first one-person exhibition of Gottfried Helnwein at an American Museum: "The Child, works by Gottfried Helnwein" at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor
. The show was seen by almost 130,000 visitors and the San Francisco Chronicle
quoted it the most important exhibition of a contemporary artist in 2004.
Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic, wrote: "Helnwein's large format, photo-realist images of children of various demeanors boldly probed the subconscious. Innocence, sexuality, victimization and haunting self-possession surge and flicker in Helnwein's unnerving work".
Harry S. Parker III, Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
explained what makes Helnwein's art significant:
"For Helnwein, the child is the symbol of innocence, but also of innocence betrayed. In today's world, the malevolent forces of war, poverty, and sexual exploitation and the numbing, predatory influence of modern media assault the virtue of children. Robert Flynn Johnson, the curator in charge, has assembled a thought-provoking selection of Helnwein's works and provided an insightful essay on his art. Helnwein's work concerning the child includes paintings, drawings, and photographs, and it ranges from subtle inscrutability to scenes of stark brutality.
Of course, brutal scenes – witness The Massacre of the Innocents
– have been important and regularly visited motifs in the history of art. What makes Helnwein's art significant is its ability to make us reflect emotionally and intellectually on the very expressive subjects he chooses. Many people feel that museums should be a refuge in which to experience quiet beauty divorced from the coarseness of the world. This notion sells short the purposes of art, the function of museums, and the intellectual curiosity of the public.
The Child: Works by Gottfried Helnwein will inspire and enlighten many; it is also sure to upset some. It is not only the right but the responsibility of the museum to present art that deals with important and sometimes controversial topics in our society".
Another strong element in his work are comics
. Helnwein has sensed the superiority of cartoon
life over real life ever since he was a child. A magazine interview brought out an explanation of his obsession with Disney characters. Growing up in dreary, destructed post-war Vienna
, the young boy was surrounded by unsmiling people haunted by a recent past they could never speak about. What changed his life was the first German-language Donald Duck
comic book that his father brought home one day. Opening the book felt like finally arriving in a world where he belonged:
"...a decent world where one could get flattened by steam-rollers and perforated by bullets without serious harm. A world in which the people still looked proper, with yellow beaks or black knobs instead of noses." (Helnwein)
In 2000, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
presented Helnwein's painting "Mouse I" (1995, oil and acrylic on canvas, 210 cm x 310 cm) at the exhibition The Darker Side of Playland: Childhood Imagery from the Logan Collection.
Alicia Miller commented on Helnwein's work in Artweek:
"In 'The Darker Side of Playland', the endearing cuteness of beloved toys and cartoon characters turns menacing and monstrous. Much of the work has the quality of childhood nightmares. In those dreams, long before any adult understanding of the specific pains and evils that live holds, the familiar and comforting objects and images of a child's world are rent with something untoward. For children, not understanding what really to be afraid of, these dreams portend some pain and disturbance lurking into the landscape.
Perhaps nothing in the exhibition exemplifies this better than Gottfried Helnwein's 'Mickey
'. His portrait of Disney's favorite mouse occupies an entire wall of the gallery; rendered from an oblique angle, his jaunty, ingenuous visage looks somehow sneaky and suspicious. His broad smile, encasing a row of gleaming teeth, seems more a snarl or leer. This is Mickey as Mr. Hyde, his hidden other self now disturbingly revealed.
Helnwein's Mickey is painted in shades of gray, as if pictured on an old black-and-white TV set. We are meant to be transported to the flickering edges of our own childhood memories in a time imaginably more blameless, crime-less and guiltless. But Mickey's terrifying demeanor hints of things to come...".
Although Helnwein's work is rooted in the legacy of German expressionism
, he has absorbed elements of American pop culture. In the 1970s, he began to include cartoon characters in his paintings. In several interviews he claimed: "I learned more from Donald Duck
than from all the schools that I have ever attended." Commenting on that aspect in Helnwein's work, Julia Pascal
wrote in the New Statesman
: "His early watercolor Peinlich (Embarrassing) shows a typical little 1950s girl in a pink dress and carrying a comic book. Her innocent appeal is destroyed by the gash deforming her cheek and lips. It is as if Donald Duck had met Mengele".
Living between Los Angeles and Ireland, Helnwein met and photographed the Rolling Stones in London, and his portrait of John F Kennedy made the front cover of Time magazine on the 20th anniversary of the president's assassination. His Self-portrait as screaming bandaged man, blinded by forks (1982) became the cover of the Scorpions
album Blackout
. Andy Warhol
, Muhammad Ali
, William Burroughs and the German industrial metal
band Rammstein
posed for him; some of his art-works appeared in the cover-booklet of Michael Jackson
's History
album. Referring to the fall of the Berlin Wall
Helnwein created the book Some Facts about Myself, together with Marlene Dietrich
. In 2003 he became friends with Marilyn Manson
and started a collaboration with him on the multi-media art-project The Golden Age of Grotesque
and on several experimental video-projects. Among his widely published works is a spoof of the famous Edward Hopper
painting Nighthawks
, entitled Boulevard of Broken Dreams
. This painting also inspired the Green Day
song
of the same name.
Examining his imagery from the 1970s to the present, one sees influences as diverse as Bosch, Goya, John Heartfield
, Beuys and Mickey Mouse
, all filtered through a postwar Viennese childhood.
'Helnwein's oeuvre embraces total antipodes: The trivial alternates with visions of spiritual doom, the divine in the child contrasts with horror-images of child-abuse. But violence remains to be his basic theme – the physical and the emotional suffering, inflicted by one human being unto another.'
for the artist's blindfolded unbent head covered with blood occurs twice in Helnwein's triptych The Silent Glow of the Avantgarde (1986). The middle panel shows an enlarged reproduction of Caspar David Friedrich
's The sea of Ice, a depiction of a catastrophe of 1823/24 which is generally interpreted as a romantic allegory
of the force of nature overpowering all human effort. Helnwein compared the "quietly theatrical" ecstatic attitude of his self-portrait with the heroic pose of the figure of the suffering figure of Sebastian and generalizes both to the stigma of the artist in the 20th century, making him a kind of saviour figure. In addition, its poetic title sets the viewer onto the right track. The visual montage of the modern artist as Man of Sorrows
with Friedrich's landscape painting projects the dashed hopes of the romantic rebellion into the present, to the protest thinking of modernity, which has become introverted and masochistic, and its crossing of aesthetic boundaries. Is romanticism
making a comeback? – No; actually, it had never left modernity. But its rebellion is confining and introverting itself in the "body metaphysics" of contemporary artists to its own flesh and blood. Thus, the comeback of romanticism leads for Helnwein, too, to stressing just one of its partial aspects, the stylizing in the form of a self-portrait of a protest introverted to martyrdom which historically was once linked in a contradictory way with social opposition, rebellion, and utopia
.
" by William Shakespeare
, (director, choreographer: Johann Kresnik), Theater Heidelberg
, 1988, Volksbühne
Berlin, 1995; "The Persecution and Murder of
Jean Paul Marat, Performed by the Drama Group of the Hospice at Charenton, under Direction of Monsieur
de Sade" by Peter Weiss
, (director: Johann Kresnik), Stuttgart National Theatre
, 1989; "Pasolini, Testament des Körpers", (director: Johann Kresnik), Deutsches Schauspielhaus
Hamburg
, 1996; "Hamletmaschine" by Heiner Müller
, (director: Gert Hof), 47. Berliner Festwochen, Berlin 1997, Muffathalle, München, 1997; "The Rake's Progress
" by Igor Stravinsky
, (director: Jürgen Flimm
), at Hamburg State Opera
, 2001; "Paradise and the Peri
", oratorio by Robert Schumann
, (director, choreographer: Gregor Seyffert & Compagnie Berlin), Robert-Schumann-Festival 2004, Tonhalle Düsseldorf
; Der Rosenkavalier
" by Richard Strauss
, (director: Maximilian Schell
) at Los Angeles Opera
, 2005, and Israeli Opera Tel Aviv
, 2006;"Der Ring des Nibelungen
, part I, Rheingold
und Walküre", choreographic theatre after Richard Wagner
, (director, choreographer: Johann Kresnik), Oper Bonn
, 2006; "Der Ring des Nibelungen
", part II, Siegfried
and Götterdämmerung
, director, choreographer: Johann Kresnik), Oper Bonn
, 2008, "The Child Dreams", by Hanoch Levin
, composer: Gil Shohat, directed by Omri Nitzan, Israeli Opera, Tel Aviv, 2009/2010.
Gottfried Helnwein currently lives and works in Ireland and Los Angeles.
County Tipperary
where he now lives with his family. In 2004 Helnwein received Irish citizenship.
On December 3, 2005, Marilyn Manson
and Dita Von Teese
were married in a private, non-denominational ceremony at Helnwein's castle. The wedding was officiated by surrealist film director Alejandro Jodorowsky
, Gottfried Helnwein was best man. The wedding pictures appeared in the March 2006 edition of Vogue
under the heading "The Bride Wore Purple".
In the past, Helnwein has supported the Church of Scientology
's Narconon
organizations. His daughter Mercedes Helnwein
is also a fine artist, a writer
, and video artist. His son Cyril Helnwein is a photographer http://cyrilhelnwein.com and his son Ali Helnwein is a composer
and musician
http://alihelnwein.com.
Helnwein is one of the few exciting painters we have today.
Norman Mailer
Well, the world is a haunted house, and Helnwein at times is our tour guide through it. In his work he is willing to take on the sadness, the irony, the ugliness and the beauty. But 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 is my mentor. His fight for expression and stance against oppression are reasons why I chose him as an artistic partner. An artist that doesn't provoke will be invisible. Art that doesn't cause strong emotions has no meaning. Helnwein has that internalized.
Marilyn Manson
Helnwein's subject matter is the human condition. The metaphor for his art is dominated by the image of the child, but not the carefree innocent child of popular imagination. Helnwein instead creates the profoundly disturbing yet compellingly provocative image of the wounded child. The child scarred physically and the child scarred emotionally from within.
Robert Flynn Johnson, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Warhol
is the pre-Helnwein ...
Dieter Ronte, Museum of Modern Art, Vienna
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, photographer
Fine art photography
Fine art photography refers to photographs that are created in accordance with the creative vision of the photographer as artist. Fine art photography stands in contrast to photojournalism, which provides a visual account for news events, and commercial photography, the primary focus of which is to...
, installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
and performance artist.
Work
Wien
Wien is the German language name for Vienna, the city and federal state in Austria.* Wien , in Vienna, Austria* Theater an der Wien, a theater in Vienna located at the former river WienWien may also refer to:...
). He was awarded the Master-class prize of the University of Visual Art, Vienna, the Kardinal-König prize and the Theodor-Körner prize.
He has worked as a painter, draftsman, photographer, muralist, sculptor, installation and performance artist, using a wide variety of techniques and media.
His early work consists mainly of hyper-realistic
Hyperrealism (painting)
Hyperrealism is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of Photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures...
watercolors, depicting wounded children, as well as performances – often with children – in public spaces. Helnwein is concerned primarily with psychological and sociological anxiety, historical issues and political topics. As a result of this, his work is often considered provocative and controversial.
Viennese
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
-born Helnwein is part of a tradition going back to the 18th century, to which Messerschmidt's
Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
Franz Xaver Messerschmidt was a German-Austrian sculptor most famous for his "character heads", a collection of busts with faces contorted in extreme facial expressions.-Early years:...
grimacing sculptures belong. One sees, too, the common ground of his works with those of Hermann Nitsch
Hermann Nitsch
Hermann Nitsch is an Austrian artist who works in experimental and multimedia modes.Born in Vienna, Nitsch received training in painting during the time he studied at the Wiener Graphische Lehr-und Versuchanstalt. He is called an "actionist" or a performance artist...
and Rudolf Schwarzkogler
Rudolf Schwarzkogler
Rudolf Schwarzkogler was an Austrian performance artist closely associated with the Viennese Actionism group that included artists Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, and Hermann Nitsch....
, two other Viennese, who display their own bodies in the frame of reference of injury, pain, and death. One can also see this fascination for body language goes back to the expressive gesture in the work of Egon Schiele
Egon Schiele
Egon Schiele was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced...
.
Head of a Child
In 2004, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, comprising the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco and one of the largest art museums in California.-External...
organized the first one-person exhibition of Gottfried Helnwein at an American Museum: "The Child, works by Gottfried Helnwein" at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor
California Palace of the Legion of Honor
The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is a fine art museum in San Francisco, California...
. The show was seen by almost 130,000 visitors and the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
quoted it the most important exhibition of a contemporary artist in 2004.
Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic, wrote: "Helnwein's large format, photo-realist images of children of various demeanors boldly probed the subconscious. Innocence, sexuality, victimization and haunting self-possession surge and flicker in Helnwein's unnerving work".
Harry S. Parker III, Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, comprising the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco and one of the largest art museums in California.-External...
explained what makes Helnwein's art significant:
"For Helnwein, the child is the symbol of innocence, but also of innocence betrayed. In today's world, the malevolent forces of war, poverty, and sexual exploitation and the numbing, predatory influence of modern media assault the virtue of children. Robert Flynn Johnson, the curator in charge, has assembled a thought-provoking selection of Helnwein's works and provided an insightful essay on his art. Helnwein's work concerning the child includes paintings, drawings, and photographs, and it ranges from subtle inscrutability to scenes of stark brutality.
Of course, brutal scenes – witness The Massacre of the Innocents
Massacre of the Innocents
The Massacre of the Innocents is an episode of infanticide by the King of Judea, Herod the Great. According to the Gospel of Matthew Herod orders the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth...
– have been important and regularly visited motifs in the history of art. What makes Helnwein's art significant is its ability to make us reflect emotionally and intellectually on the very expressive subjects he chooses. Many people feel that museums should be a refuge in which to experience quiet beauty divorced from the coarseness of the world. This notion sells short the purposes of art, the function of museums, and the intellectual curiosity of the public.
The Child: Works by Gottfried Helnwein will inspire and enlighten many; it is also sure to upset some. It is not only the right but the responsibility of the museum to present art that deals with important and sometimes controversial topics in our society".
Comics and trivial art
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
. Helnwein has sensed the superiority of cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
life over real life ever since he was a child. A magazine interview brought out an explanation of his obsession with Disney characters. Growing up in dreary, destructed post-war Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, the young boy was surrounded by unsmiling people haunted by a recent past they could never speak about. What changed his life was the first German-language Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
comic book that his father brought home one day. Opening the book felt like finally arriving in a world where he belonged:
"...a decent world where one could get flattened by steam-rollers and perforated by bullets without serious harm. A world in which the people still looked proper, with yellow beaks or black knobs instead of noses." (Helnwein)
In 2000, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
presented Helnwein's painting "Mouse I" (1995, oil and acrylic on canvas, 210 cm x 310 cm) at the exhibition The Darker Side of Playland: Childhood Imagery from the Logan Collection.
Alicia Miller commented on Helnwein's work in Artweek:
"In 'The Darker Side of Playland', the endearing cuteness of beloved toys and cartoon characters turns menacing and monstrous. Much of the work has the quality of childhood nightmares. In those dreams, long before any adult understanding of the specific pains and evils that live holds, the familiar and comforting objects and images of a child's world are rent with something untoward. For children, not understanding what really to be afraid of, these dreams portend some pain and disturbance lurking into the landscape.
Perhaps nothing in the exhibition exemplifies this better than Gottfried Helnwein's 'Mickey
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
'. His portrait of Disney's favorite mouse occupies an entire wall of the gallery; rendered from an oblique angle, his jaunty, ingenuous visage looks somehow sneaky and suspicious. His broad smile, encasing a row of gleaming teeth, seems more a snarl or leer. This is Mickey as Mr. Hyde, his hidden other self now disturbingly revealed.
Helnwein's Mickey is painted in shades of gray, as if pictured on an old black-and-white TV set. We are meant to be transported to the flickering edges of our own childhood memories in a time imaginably more blameless, crime-less and guiltless. But Mickey's terrifying demeanor hints of things to come...".
Although Helnwein's work is rooted in the legacy of German expressionism
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
, he has absorbed elements of American pop culture. In the 1970s, he began to include cartoon characters in his paintings. In several interviews he claimed: "I learned more from Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
than from all the schools that I have ever attended." Commenting on that aspect in Helnwein's work, Julia Pascal
Julia Pascal
Julia Pascal is a British atheist Jewish playwright and theatre director.Her stage plays include Theresa, based on the true story of a Jewish woman on Guernsey during the German occupation in the Second World War. This is the first in The Holocaust Trilogy...
wrote in the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
: "His early watercolor Peinlich (Embarrassing) shows a typical little 1950s girl in a pink dress and carrying a comic book. Her innocent appeal is destroyed by the gash deforming her cheek and lips. It is as if Donald Duck had met Mengele".
Living between Los Angeles and Ireland, Helnwein met and photographed the Rolling Stones in London, and his portrait of John F Kennedy made the front cover of Time magazine on the 20th anniversary of the president's assassination. His Self-portrait as screaming bandaged man, blinded by forks (1982) became the cover of the Scorpions
Scorpions (band)
Scorpions are a heavy metal/hard rock band from Hannover, Germany, formed in 1965 by guitarist Rudolf Schenker, who is the band's only constant member. They are known for their 1980s rock anthem "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and many singles, such as "No One Like You", "Send Me an Angel", "Still...
album Blackout
Blackout (Scorpions album)
- Personnel :* Klaus Meine – Lead vocals* Matthias Jabs – Lead guitar, Backing vocals* Rudolf Schenker – Rhythm guitar, Backing vocals* Francis Buchholz – Bass, Backing vocals* Herman Rarebell – Drums, Percussion, Backing vocals...
. Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
, William Burroughs and the German industrial metal
Industrial metal
Industrial metal is a musical genre that draws from industrial music and many different types of heavy metal, using repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Founding industrial metal acts include Ministry, Godflesh, and KMFDM.Industrial metal's...
band Rammstein
Rammstein
Rammstein is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
posed for him; some of his art-works appeared in the cover-booklet of Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
's History
HIStory
HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is the ninth studio album by American songwriter and recording artist Michael Jackson, released on June 16, 1995 by Epic Records. The majority of the album's tracks were written and produced by Jackson...
album. Referring to the fall of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
Helnwein created the book Some Facts about Myself, together with Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
. In 2003 he became friends with Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson may refer to:* Marilyn Manson , an American rock musician* Marilyn Manson , the American rock band led by the singer of the same name...
and started a collaboration with him on the multi-media art-project The Golden Age of Grotesque
The Golden Age of Grotesque
Initial critical response to The Golden Age of Grotesque was mixed. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 60, indicating mixed or average reviews, based on 12 publications...
and on several experimental video-projects. Among his widely published works is a spoof of the famous Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
painting Nighthawks
Nighthawks
Nighthawks is a 1942 painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. It is considered Hopper's most famous painting, as well as one of the most recognizable in American art...
, entitled Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Generally, "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams" refers to Sunset Boulevard, due to its historically being both the primary location for live entertainment in the Los Angeles, California metropolitan region and a red-light district ."Boulevard of Broken Dreams" may also refer to:-Music:* "Boulevard of...
. This painting also inspired the Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
song
Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day song)
"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is a song by American punk rock band Green Day. It was released as the second single from their seventh album, American Idiot. The song was written by Green Day, with lyrics by lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong...
of the same name.
Examining his imagery from the 1970s to the present, one sees influences as diverse as Bosch, Goya, John Heartfield
John Heartfield
John Heartfield is the anglicized name of the German photomontage artist Helmut Herzfeld...
, Beuys and Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
, all filtered through a postwar Viennese childhood.
Self portraits
The self-portraitSelf-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...
for the artist's blindfolded unbent head covered with blood occurs twice in Helnwein's triptych The Silent Glow of the Avantgarde (1986). The middle panel shows an enlarged reproduction of Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning...
's The sea of Ice, a depiction of a catastrophe of 1823/24 which is generally interpreted as a romantic allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
of the force of nature overpowering all human effort. Helnwein compared the "quietly theatrical" ecstatic attitude of his self-portrait with the heroic pose of the figure of the suffering figure of Sebastian and generalizes both to the stigma of the artist in the 20th century, making him a kind of saviour figure. In addition, its poetic title sets the viewer onto the right track. The visual montage of the modern artist as Man of Sorrows
Man of Sorrows
Among the passages in the Hebrew Bible that have been identified by Christians as prefigurations of the Messiah, the Man of Sorrows of Isaiah 53 is paramount - the various theological traditions are discussed at that article...
with Friedrich's landscape painting projects the dashed hopes of the romantic rebellion into the present, to the protest thinking of modernity, which has become introverted and masochistic, and its crossing of aesthetic boundaries. Is romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
making a comeback? – No; actually, it had never left modernity. But its rebellion is confining and introverting itself in the "body metaphysics" of contemporary artists to its own flesh and blood. Thus, the comeback of romanticism leads for Helnwein, too, to stressing just one of its partial aspects, the stylizing in the form of a self-portrait of a protest introverted to martyrdom which historically was once linked in a contradictory way with social opposition, rebellion, and utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
.
Works for the stage
Helnwein is also known for his stage and costume designs for theater, ballet and opera productions. Amongst them: "MacbethMacbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
" by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, (director, choreographer: Johann Kresnik), Theater Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, 1988, Volksbühne
Volksbühne
The Volksbühne is a theater in Berlin, Germany. Located in Berlin's city center Mitte on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in what was the GDR's capital....
Berlin, 1995; "The Persecution and Murder of
Marat/Sade
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade , almost invariably shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1963 play by Peter Weiss...
Jean Paul Marat, Performed by the Drama Group of the Hospice at Charenton, under Direction of Monsieur
Marat/Sade
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade , almost invariably shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1963 play by Peter Weiss...
de Sade" by Peter Weiss
Peter Weiss
Peter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, and artist of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance....
, (director: Johann Kresnik), Stuttgart National Theatre
Staatstheater Stuttgart
The Staatstheater Stuttgart ' is an opera house in Stuttgart, Germany. It is also known locally as the Grosses Haus, having been the larger of two theatres of the former Königliche Hoftheater....
, 1989; "Pasolini, Testament des Körpers", (director: Johann Kresnik), Deutsches Schauspielhaus
Deutsches Schauspielhaus
The Deutsches Schauspielhaus is a theatre in the St. Georg quarter of the city of Hamburg, Germany. With a capacity for 1192 spectators, it places it as Germany's largest theatre...
Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, 1996; "Hamletmaschine" by Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
, (director: Gert Hof), 47. Berliner Festwochen, Berlin 1997, Muffathalle, München, 1997; "The Rake's Progress
The Rake's Progress
The Rake's Progress is an opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on May 2, 1947, in a Chicago...
" by Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, (director: Jürgen Flimm
Jürgen Flimm
Jürgen Flimm is a German theater and opera director, and theater manager. After establishing himself as one of the exponents of Regietheater, Flimm was called to manage renowned theaters and festivals...
), at Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
, 2001; "Paradise and the Peri
Paradise and the Peri
Paradise and the Peri, in German Das Paradies und die Peri, is a cantata for soloists, chorus, and orchestra by Robert Schumann. Completed in 1843, the work was published as Schumann's Op. 50....
", oratorio by Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, (director, choreographer: Gregor Seyffert & Compagnie Berlin), Robert-Schumann-Festival 2004, Tonhalle Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
; Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
" by Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, (director: Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell is an Austrian-born Swiss actor who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961...
) at Los Angeles Opera
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.-Current leadership:...
, 2005, and Israeli Opera Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
, 2006;"Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
, part I, Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
und Walküre", choreographic theatre after Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, (director, choreographer: Johann Kresnik), Oper Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, 2006; "Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
", part II, Siegfried
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...
and Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
, director, choreographer: Johann Kresnik), Oper Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, 2008, "The Child Dreams", by Hanoch Levin
Hanoch Levin
Hanoch Levin , was a prominent Israeli dramatist. He was also a theater director, an author and a poet, but he is best known for his plays.- Early life :...
, composer: Gil Shohat, directed by Omri Nitzan, Israeli Opera, Tel Aviv, 2009/2010.
Chronology
- 1965–1969 Helnwein studied at the Vienna Higher College for Graphic Art ().
- 1969–1973 He studied at the University of Visual Art in Vienna (, WienWienWien is the German language name for Vienna, the city and federal state in Austria.* Wien , in Vienna, Austria* Theater an der Wien, a theater in Vienna located at the former river WienWien may also refer to:...
).
- At that time he began to work on a series of hyper-realistic watercolour-paintings of bandaged and wounded children.
- 1971 First public Aktions in the streets of Vienna, often with bandaged children (Aktion Sorgenkind, Aktion Hallo Dulder, Aktion Eternal Youth, Aktion Sandra).
- In the exhibition "Zoetus" at the Kunsthalle "Künstlerhaus" in Vienna, unidentified people put stickers with the words "Entartete Kunst" (degenerate artDegenerate artDegenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
) on Helnwein's paintings.
- At the opening of an one man show at Galerie D. in Moedling, near Vienna, the Major has Helnwein's Artworks confiscated by the police.
- 1972 An exhibition at the (Gallery of the House of the Press) is closed after 3 days because of strong protests and threats by the works council.
- 1979 Spurred into action by an interview in an Austrian tabloid in which the country's top court psychiatrist, Dr Heinrich GrossHeinrich GrossHeinrich Gross was an Austrian psychiatrist, medical doctor and neurologist, best known for his proven involvement in the killing of at least nine children with physical, mental and/or emotional/behavioral characteristics considered "unclean" by the Nazi regime, under its Euthanasia Program...
, admitted killing children at Vienna's Pediatric Unit during the war by poisoning their food, Helnwein painted Life not Worth Living – a watercolour of a little girl "asleep" on the table, her head in her plate. The painting was published in Austrias leading newsmagazine Profil and sparked a nationwide debate that finally led to Gross' appearing before a Vienna court. The judge ruled Gross was mentally unfit to be tried.
- 1982 Helnwein was offered a chair by the University of Applied Sciences in HamburgHamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, which he declined.
- 1983 Helnwein met Andy WarholAndy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
in his factory in New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, who posed for a series of photo-sessions.
- 1984 Austrian and German National Television co-produced the film Helnwein, directed by Peter Hajek. In Los Angeles, Helnwein meets Muhammad AliMuhammad AliMuhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
, who appeared in his film. The film was awarded the Adolf Grimme Prize for best television-documentary and in the same year won the Eduard Rhein Prize and the Golden Kader of the city of Vienna for outstanding camera work.
- 1985 One man show at the Albertina, ViennaAlbertina, ViennaThe Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well as more modern graphic works, photographs and architectural drawings...
.
- Rudolf HausnerRudolf HausnerRudolf Hausner was an Austrian painter, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. Hausner has been described as a "psychic realist" and "the first psychoanalytical painter" .-Early life:...
, recommended Helnwein as his successor as professor of the master-class for painting at the University of Visual Art in Vienna, but Helnwein left Vienna and moved to Germany. He bought a medieval castle close to CologneCologneCologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
and the Rhine-river, where he lived and worked till 1997.
- Besides his realistic work, Helnwein also began to develop abstract, expressive styles of painting during this period. He radically changes his way of working and now begins a series of large-format pictures consisting of several parts (diptychs, triptychs, poliptychs). In doing so he combines photomurals with abstract gestural and monochrome paintingMonochrome paintingMonochromatic painting has been an important component of avant-garde visual art throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. Painters have created the exploration of one color, the examination of values changing across a surface, the expressivity of texture and nuance, expressing a wide...
in oil and acrylic, also using reproductions of Caspar David FriedrichCaspar David FriedrichCaspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning...
paintings and war documentary photographs which he assembles to form what Viennese art-critic Peter Gorsen calls "Bilderstrassen" (picture lanes).
- 1987 , Gottfried Helnwein, self-portraits of from 1970–1987, one man show at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Strasbourg.
- Aktion Gott der Untermenschen (God of Sub-Humans), Performance at Camp Kopal, St. Pölten of the Austrian Army, using tanks and ammunition
- 1988, In remembrance of "KristallnachtKristallnachtKristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
"http://kristallnacht.helnwein.com/en_US/news/update/artikel_300.html, the actual beginning of the Holocaust – 50 years earlier, Helnwein erected a 100 meter long installation in the city center of CologneCologneCologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, between Ludwig MuseumMuseum LudwigMuseum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from PopArt, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It also features many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein....
and the Cologne CathedralCologne CathedralCologne Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Cologne, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and the administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and is a World Heritage Site...
. Just days into the exhibit, these portraits were vandalized by unknown persons, symbolically cutting the throats of the depicted children's faces. Since then large scale installations in public spaces became an important part of his work.
- 1989 One-man show at the Folkwang Museum in Essen.
- Torino Fotografia 1989, Biennale Internationale, Gottfried Helnwein, David HockneyDavid HockneyDavid Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
, Clegg and Guttmann.
- 1989 Helnwein's photographic work from 1970 to 1989 was published in a monograph by Dai Nipon in Japan. Text by Toshiharu Ito.
- Helnwein met William S. BurroughsWilliam S. BurroughsWilliam Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
in Lawrence, KansasLawrence, KansasLawrence is the sixth largest city in the U.S. State of Kansas and the county seat of Douglas County. Located in northeastern Kansas, Lawrence is the anchor city of the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County...
.
- Cooperation with German poet and playwright Heiner MüllerHeiner MüllerHeiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
and choreographer Hans Kresnik on a play about Antonin ArtaudAntonin ArtaudAntoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
.
- 1990 One-man show in the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne. Installation "Neunter November Nacht".
- 1990 Collaboration with Marlene DietrichMarlene DietrichMarlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
on the book Some Facts about Myself, for the occasion of the fall of the Berlin WallBerlin WallThe Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
. Her essay that gave the book its title was the last text that Marlene Dietrich wrote in her life.
- 1991 Installation Kindskopf (Child's Head) in the Minoriten Church in Krems, Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum (Museum of Lower Austria). Helnwein painted a 6x4 m (18x12 feet) child's head for the apse of the early Gothic basilica.
- Helnwein finished 48 Portraits, a series of 48 monochrome red pictures of women (oil on canvas) as a counterpart to Gerhard RichterGerhard RichterGerhard Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.- Biography :Gerhard Richter was born in...
's "48 Portraits" of 1971, which depict only men in monochrome grey. The cycle of paintings was first shown at Galerie Koppelmann in Cologne, and later acquired by collector Peter Ludwig for the Collection of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne.
- Helnwein began to focus on digital photographyDigital photographyDigital photography is a form of photography that uses an array of light sensitive sensors to capture the image focused by the lens, as opposed to an exposure on light sensitive film...
and computer-generated images which he often combines with classical oil-painting techniques.
- 1993 One-man show at Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn.
- Aktion-Reaktion, exhibition of the Austrian painters Arnulf RainerArnulf RainerArnulf Rainer , is an Austrian painter and is internationally renowned for his abstract informal art.In his early years, Rainer was influenced by Surrealism...
, Hermann NitschHermann NitschHermann Nitsch is an Austrian artist who works in experimental and multimedia modes.Born in Vienna, Nitsch received training in painting during the time he studied at the Wiener Graphische Lehr-und Versuchanstalt. He is called an "actionist" or a performance artist...
, Günter Brus, and Helnwein, works from the Schömer collection, at the Foundation Fiecht, Austria.
- 1994 Stage design, costumes, and make-up for MacbethMacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
, a production of Hans Kresnik's Choreographic Theatre at Volksbühne Berlin http://www.gottfriedhelnwein.ie/kuenstler/bibliografie/artikel_2437.html. The play was awarded the Theatre Prize of Berlin.
- Helnwein curated and organized the first museum exhibition of Disney artist Carl BarksCarl BarksCarl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
, the creator of the Donald Duck universe, Uncle ScroogeUncle ScroogeUncle Scrooge is a comic book with the stingy Scrooge McDuck "the richest duck in the world" as the main character. The series also featured Donald Duck and his nephews as supporting characters. The first 70 issues mostly consisted of stories written and drawn by Carl Barks, the creator of Scrooge...
and Duckburg. The retrospective was shown in 10 European museums and seen by more than 400,000 visitors.
- 1997 Moved to Ireland http://www.gottfriedhelnwein.ie/kuenstler/atelier/tafel_1.html.
- In the same year, the State Russian Museum in St. PetersburgSaint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
organized a Helnwein retrospective and published a monograph of the artist http://www.helnwein-museum.com/article329.html.
- German collectors Peter and Irene Ludwig donated 53 works of Helnwein to the collection of the State Russian Museum Saint Petersburg.
- Photo-session with the German industrial metalIndustrial metalIndustrial metal is a musical genre that draws from industrial music and many different types of heavy metal, using repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Founding industrial metal acts include Ministry, Godflesh, and KMFDM.Industrial metal's...
band RammsteinRammsteinRammstein is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
. Their album SehnsuchtSehnsucht (Rammstein album)-Chart positions:- Personnel :*Till Lindemann – Vocals*Richard Z. Kruspe – Lead guitars, backing vocals*Paul Landers – Rhythm guitars*Oliver Riedel – Bass guitar*Christoph Schneider – Drums*Christian "Flake" Lorenz – Keyboards*Bobo – Additional female vocals...
is released with six different covers by Gottfried Helnwein.
- 2000 The San Francisco Museum of Modern ArtSan Francisco Museum of Modern ArtThe San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
shows Helnwein's Mickey I, (1995, oil and acrylic on canvas, 83" x 122") in the exhibition The Darker Side of Playland: Childhood Imagery from the Logan Collection.
- Helnwein's Black Mirror, (Self-Portrait, polaroid, 1987) in the show Ghost in the Shell at the Los Angeles County Museum of ArtLos Angeles County Museum of ArtThe Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
.
- 2001 Stage and costume design for the Hamburgische Staatsoper of Igor StravinskyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's opera The Rake's ProgressThe Rake's ProgressThe Rake's Progress is an opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on May 2, 1947, in a Chicago...
http://www.helnwein.org/werke/theater/group15/image769.html.
- 2002 Helnwein established a studio in Los AngelesLos Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
.
- 2003 Premiere of the Helnwein documentary Ninth November Night, the Art of Gottfried Helnwein at the Museum of ToleranceMuseum of ToleranceThe Museum of Tolerance , a multimedia museum in Los Angeles, California, USA, with an associated museum and professional development multi-media training facility in New York City, is designed to examine racism and prejudice in the United States and the world with a strong focus on the history of...
, Simon WiesenthalSimon WiesenthalSimon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....
Center, Los Angeles. Director: Henning LohnerHenning LohnerHenning Lohner is a German born filmmaker and composer. His artistic output embraces diverse fields within the audio-visual arts...
, Commentators: Sean PennSean PennSean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...
, Maximilian SchellMaximilian SchellMaximilian Schell is an Austrian-born Swiss actor who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961...
, Jason LeeJason Lee (actor)Jason Michael Lee is an American actor and skateboarder known for his role as the title character on the NBC television series My Name is Earl, his portrayal of Syndrome in the film The Incredibles, his role as Dave Seville in the Alvin and the Chipmunks films, and his work with director Kevin...
, Introductory text by Simon WiesenthalSimon WiesenthalSimon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....
. (Camera: Jason Lee, Darren Rydstrom, Bernd Reinhardt)http://kristallnacht.helnwein.com/en_US/news/update/artikel_1466.html.
- Collaboration with Marilyn MansonMarilyn Manson (band)Marilyn Manson is an American metal band from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Formed in 1989 by Brian Warner and Scott Putesky, the group was originally named Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids with their uniquely theatrical performances gathering a local cult following in the early '90s. This attention...
on the multi-media project The Golden Age of GrotesqueThe Golden Age of GrotesqueInitial critical response to The Golden Age of Grotesque was mixed. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 60, indicating mixed or average reviews, based on 12 publications...
http://www.helnwein.org/werke/photo/group71/image1126.html and video productions like DoppelherzDoppelherzDoppelherz is a short, surrealist film by Marilyn Manson that runs for 25 minutes and was included on a Bonus DVD that came with some releases of Marilyn Manson's fifth studio album, The Golden Age of Grotesque, released in 2003....
und MobsceneMOBSCENE"Mobscene", stylized as "mOBSCENE", is the inaugural single taken from the 2003 Marilyn Manson album The Golden Age of Grotesque. Lines in the song chanted by female vocalists, "Be obscene, be, be obscene..." are inspired by a quote by Oscar Wilde that has been commonly used as a chant among...
.
- Installation and performance with Manson at the Volksbühne Berlin.http://www.helnwein-music.com/article1187.html
- Collaboration with Sean PennSean PennSean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...
on the Music Video 'The Barry Williams Show' by Peter GabrielPeter GabrielPeter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
http://www.helnwein-music.com/article1187.html
- 2004 The Child, Works by Gottfried Helnwein, one-man show at the California Palace of the Legion of HonorCalifornia Palace of the Legion of HonorThe California Palace of the Legion of Honor is a fine art museum in San Francisco, California...
, San Francisco Fine Arts Museums. The exhibition is seen by 130,000 visitors. The San Francisco Chronicle calls the exhibition the most important show of a contemporary artist in 2004.
- Collaboration with Maximilian SchellMaximilian SchellMaximilian Schell is an Austrian-born Swiss actor who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961...
for the Richard StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
opera Der RosenkavalierDer RosenkavalierDer Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
http://www.helnwein-theater.com/article2159.html at Los Angeles OperaLos Angeles OperaThe Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.-Current leadership:...
, and Israeli Opera Tel Aviv.
- Helnwein receives Irish citizenship.
- 2005 Helnwein one man show Beautiful Children at the Ludwig Museum Schloss Oberhausen and the Wilhelm-Busch-Museum Hannover. Helnwein retrospective at the National Art Museum in BeijingBeijingBeijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
.
- 2006 Face it, one man show, Lentos Museum of Modern Art Linz http://www.helnwein-museum.com/article2063.html
- The council of the city of Philadelphia honors Gottfried Helnwein for his artistic contributions in keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive
- 2007 Governor Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
acquired the painting "Death ValleyDeath ValleyDeath Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California. Situated within the Mojave Desert, it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. Badwater, a basin located in Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet below...
(American Landscape I, 2002, oil and acrylic on canvas, 48 x 300 inches) for the Governor's Council Room at the California State CapitolCalifornia State CapitolThe California State Capitol is home to the government of California. The building houses the bicameral state legislature and the office of the governor....
in SacramentoSacramentoSacramento is the capital of the state of California, in the United States of America.Sacramento may also refer to:- United States :*Sacramento County, California*Sacramento, Kentucky*Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta...
. - The Virtual Museum of Art at Second LifeSecond LifeSecond Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
opened with a Helnwein retrospective. The VMOA is the first virtual Museum that is dedicated to the lifework of a living artist.
- Participation in the exhibition Rembrandt to Thiebaud: A Decade of Collecting Works on Paper, De Young, Fine Arts Museums of San FranciscoFine Arts Museums of San FranciscoThe Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, comprising the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco and one of the largest art museums in California.-External...
.
- 2008 Retrospective at RudolfinumRudolfinumThe Rudolfinum is a music auditorium in Prague, Czech Republic. It is designed in the neo-renaissance style and is situated on Jan Palach Square on the bank of the river Vltava.-Overview:...
GalleryArt galleryAn art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
in PraguePraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. - I Walk Alone, one man show at the Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery, San Jose State UniversitySan José State UniversitySan Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...
.
- On the occasion of the infamous incest case of AmstettenAmstetten, Lower AustriaAmstetten is a town in Lower Austria. It is the capital of the Amstetten District.-Geography:Is geographically located between 48 ° 07 ' N and 14 ° 52 ' E , at a height of 275 meters , has an area of 52.22 km ² , its population in 2001 was 22,595 inhabitants, with a population density of 441 habs...
in Austria, the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung writes: "Amstetten between discomposure and media-hype: A dungeon amidst the town, a father inflicting martyrdom onto his children – how we struggle to put the pieces of the incomprehensible together. The dungeon in Amstetten touches something deep inside the marrow of the Austrians, their dark side, mirrored in the poems of their authors and in the Images of Gottfried Helnwein, depicting people with forkes pusched into their eyes. Or Girls with blood running down their legs. Helnwein's paintings are nightmares, that tell of the dungeons in our heads..."
- The last Child, Installation throughout the city of Waterford, Ireland.
- Kunst nach 1970 – Art after 1970, Albertina Museum Vienna.
- 2009 Friedman Benda Gallery, New York represents Gottfried Helnwein, one man show.
- Participation in two exhibitions at the Albertina Museum in Vienna: Body and Language – Contemporary Photography from the Albertina Collection, (Gottfried Helnwein, Chuck Close, Marie Jo Lafontaine, Jannis Kounnellis, Helmuth Newton, Erwin Wurm, John Coplans) and Masterpieces of Modern Art, The Permanent Collection of the Albertina and the Baitliner Collection.
- 2010 For the Israeli Opera Gottfried Helnwein creates sets and costumes for Gil ShohatGil ShohatGil Shohat is an Israeli classical music composer, conductor and pianist.Shohat was born in 1973 in Israel to the Ha'aretz journalist Tzipora Shohat. His first orchestral work was performed by the Israel Chamber Orchestra when he was 18. He served as the chief pianist of the Israeli Defense Forces...
's opera adaptationThe Child Dreams (opera)The Child Dreams is a 2010 opera by Gil Shohat, based on the play of the same name by Hanoch Levin.-Background and world premiere:The Child Dreams was commissioned by the Israeli Opera for its 25th anniversary season, one of a number of new operas commissioned by the company from Israeli...
of the play The Child Dreams by Hanoch Levin.
- The Installation Ninth November Night in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Gottfried Helnwein currently lives and works in Ireland and Los Angeles.
Personal life
Helnwein has four children with his wife Renate: Cyril, Mercedes, Ali Elvis and Wolfgang Amadeus, who are all artists. He moved to Dublin, Ireland in 1997. In 1998, he bought castle Gurteen de La Poer in KilsheelanKilsheelan
Kilsheelan is a small village in South Tipperary, Ireland. It is also a civil parish in the barony of Iffa and Offa East. It is one half of the Roman Catholic parish of Kilsheelan & Kilcash in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Waterford and Lismore. It is situated on the north bank of the River Suir,...
County Tipperary
County Tipperary
County Tipperary is a county of Ireland. It is located in the province of Munster and is named after the town of Tipperary. The area of the county does not have a single local authority; local government is split between two authorities. In North Tipperary, part of the Mid-West Region, local...
where he now lives with his family. In 2004 Helnwein received Irish citizenship.
On December 3, 2005, Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson may refer to:* Marilyn Manson , an American rock musician* Marilyn Manson , the American rock band led by the singer of the same name...
and Dita Von Teese
Dita Von Teese
Dita Von Teese is an American burlesque dancer, model, costume designer, author and actress.-Early life:...
were married in a private, non-denominational ceremony at Helnwein's castle. The wedding was officiated by surrealist film director Alejandro Jodorowsky
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky, known as Alejandro Jodorowsky, is a Chilean filmmaker, playwright, actor, author, comic book writer and spiritual guru...
, Gottfried Helnwein was best man. The wedding pictures appeared in the March 2006 edition of Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
under the heading "The Bride Wore Purple".
In the past, Helnwein has supported the Church of Scientology
Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...
's Narconon
Narconon
Narconon is a residential program aimed at substance abusers, headquartered in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It operates through several dozen treatment centers worldwide, chiefly in the United States and Western Europe. Each Narconon center is independently owned and operated under a license...
organizations. His daughter Mercedes Helnwein
Mercedes Helnwein
Mercedes Helnwein is a fine artist and writer. She lives in Ireland and Los Angeles, CA.-Family and early life:Mercedes Helnwein was born in Vienna, Austria. Her father is Austro-Irish artist Gottfried Helnwein...
is also a fine artist, a writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, and video artist. His son Cyril Helnwein is a photographer http://cyrilhelnwein.com and his son Ali Helnwein is a composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
http://alihelnwein.com.
Quotes
William Burroughs said of Helnwein:- "It is the function of the artist to evoke the experience of surprised recognition: to show the viewer what he knows but does not know that he knows. Helnwein is a master of surprised recognition."
Helnwein is one of the few exciting painters we have today.
Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
Well, the world is a haunted house, and Helnwein at times is our tour guide through it. In his work he is willing to take on the sadness, the irony, the ugliness and the beauty. But 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
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...
Gottfried Helnwein is my mentor. His fight for expression and stance against oppression are reasons why I chose him as an artistic partner. An artist that doesn't provoke will be invisible. Art that doesn't cause strong emotions has no meaning. Helnwein has that internalized.
Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson (person)
Marilyn Manson is an American musician, artist and former music journalist known for his controversial stage persona and image as the lead singer of the eponymous band Marilyn Manson...
Helnwein's subject matter is the human condition. The metaphor for his art is dominated by the image of the child, but not the carefree innocent child of popular imagination. Helnwein instead creates the profoundly disturbing yet compellingly provocative image of the wounded child. The child scarred physically and the child scarred emotionally from within.
Robert Flynn Johnson, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
is the pre-Helnwein ...
Dieter Ronte, Museum of Modern Art, Vienna
Selected publications
- The Child, Works by Gottfried Helnwein
One man exhibition 2004, San Francisco Fine Arts Museums
Robert Flynn Johnson, Harry S. Parker, Robert Flynn Johnson, The Child – Works by Gottfried Helnwein,
(ISBN 0-88401-112-7)
- Face it, Works by Gottfried Helnwein
One man exhibition 2006, Lentos Museum of Modern Art Linz
Stella Rollig, Thomas Edlinger, Nava Semel, Stella Rollig, Presence and Time: Gottfried Helnwein's Pictures
Christian Brandstätter, Wien 2006, (ISBN 3-902510-39-0)
- Angels Sleeping – Retrospective Gottfried Helnwein
Retrospective 2004, Rudolfinum Gallery Prague,
Peter Nedoma, 2008. Essay,
Peter Nedoma speaks with Gottfried Helnwein,
(ISBN 978-80-86443-11-9)
- Gottfried Helnwein – Monograph,
Retrospective 1997, State Russian Museum St. Petersburg
Alexander Borovsky, Klaus Honnef, Peter Selz, William Burroughs, Heiner Müller, H.C. Artmann, Klaus Honnef, Helnwein – The Subversive Power of Art,
Palace Edition 1997, (ISBN 3-930775-31-X), Koenemann 1999, (ISBN 3-8290-1448-1)
- Helnwein – Ninth November Night, 2003
Documentary, Commemoration of the 65th Anniversary of Kristallnacht, Museum of Tolerance, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles
Johnathon Keats, Simon Wiesenthal, Johnathon Keats, Helnwein – The Art of Humanity
Further reading
- Klaus Honnef, The Subversive Power of Art, Gottfried Helnwein – A Concept Artist before the Turn of the Millennium, University of Heidelberg, 1997.http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/archiv/2941/
- Gerry McCarthy, Bloodied but unbowed, The Sunday Times, UK, September 14, 2008. http://www.gottfriedhelnwein.ie/news/update/artikel_3635.html
- Peter Gorsen, The Divided Self – Gottfried Helnwein in his self-portraits, Museum of Modern Art, Strasbourg, Edition Braus, Heidelberg, 1988. http://www.helnwein.com/texte/selected_authors/artikel_124.html
- Lynell George: Gottfried Helnwein is in L.A.'s dark grip, Los Angeles Times, January 27, 2008.http://www.helnwein.com/presse/selected_articles/artikel_3407.html
- Kenneth Baker: Dark and detached, the art of Gottfried Helnwein demands a response, San Francisco Chronicle, August 9, 2004. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/08/09/DDGKO8459A1.DTL
- Steven Winn, Childhood isn't what it used to be. In the arts, it's dark and complex, San Francisco Chronicle, November 17, 2004. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/11/17/DDG8U9PS8K32.DTL
- Julia Pascal, Nazi dreaming, New Statesman, UK, April 10, 2006. http://www.newstatesman.com/200604100034
- Aiden Dunne, Cutting Edge, The Irish Times, August 1, 2001. http://www.gottfriedhelnwein.ie/presse/local_press/artikel_68.html
- Mark Swed: Strange, but True – Gottfried Helnwein's wondrous staging of Der Rosenkavalier, Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2005. http://www.helnwein-theater.com/article2160.html
- Brendan Maher, Interview with Gottfried Helnwein, Start, Ireland, November 24, 2004. http://www.gottfried-helnwein-interview.com/brendan_maher.html.
- Mitchell Waxman, Helnwein ‘Epiphany’ Afflicts Comfortable, Jewish Journal, Los Angeles, July 23, 2004. http://www.jewishjournal.com/arts/article/helnwein_epiphany_afflicts_comfortable_20040723/
- Stella Rollig, Gottfried Helnwein: Face it, Lentos Museum of Modern Art, Linz, Exhibition, March 10 – June 5, 2006. http://www.helnwein-museum.com/article2534.html.
- Helen Kaye, Sleep of Death, Jerusalem Post, Dec 31, 2009. http://www.helnwein.com/presse/international_press/artikel_3982.html.
- Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata, Shared Reading: Gottfried Helnwein, A Justice Site, California State University, Dominguez Hills, University of Wisconsin, Parkside, 2004. http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/helnwein01.htm
External links
- Official website
- The Irish website
- www.helnwein.net
- Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
- Denver Art Museum
- www.helnwein-museum.com
- Helnwein's work for the stage
- Helnwein and the comic culture
- Honnef, University Heidelberg
- Helnwein's art referring to the Holocaust
- www.helnwein.org
- Helnwein's Facebook
- Helnwein's Youtube
- Helnwein's Deviantart