Gepeinigte Kinder, bandagierte Gesichter und Donald Duck: Der Maler Gottfried Helnwein ist so umstritten wie populär. Am Mittwoch feiert er seinen 60. Geburtstag. ...

Helnwein: Ich bin trotz allem gerne in Los Angeles, muss ich sagen. Ich geniesse es, wenn ich früh in der Morgensonne durch die ausgestorbenen Strassen Downtowns ins Atelier gehe, vorbei all den Graffiti-Kunstwerken an den Fassaden der heruntergekommenen Industriebauten und dem Abfall auf der Strasse. Bis Mittag lebe ich in einer Ghost-Town, da hier vorher kaum einer auf ist. Es ist ein bisschen wie in einem Film. Es hat was von "Blade-Runner", der ja auch hier gedreht wurde. Verfall hat seine eigene Faszination und Ästhetik. ...

Again and again, he has painted children in brutal, violent settings. He has used Chris­tian iconography to depict Nazi officers, and juxtaposed rampaging soldiers with Images of childhood innocence. Visceral reactions come with the territory: one Installation in Cologne was physically attacked by neo Nazis. And yet, he says, he does not set out to shock. "Shock is a useless effect," he says. "Somebody in shock is completely useless. I want to make somebody think."
Instead, Helnwein's work speaks of a deep psychological need for meaning, even as it takes the form of violence and confrontation. Such an approach is rooted in the uneasy silences of growing up in post-war Austria and the shattered illusions of his early adult life, yet is still infused with an uneasy ideal­ism.
His art has brought him material rewards. Over the past 30 years, he has become an art superstar. His paintings and photographs command large prices. As he talks in his Co Tipperary castle, garbed in black clothes and dark glasses, Helnwein has the air of a vet­eran rock star and the lifestyle to match it. ...

WITH some of his "The Last Child" instal­lations reaching a massive 120ft, Austri­an born artist Gottfried Helnwein has been causing quite some controversy around Waterford City. ...

LARGE-scale art installations dotted around Waterford’s city centre depicting war images are causing controversy because of their graphic content.
The exhibition, The Last Child, by Austrian-born and Waterford-based artist Gottfried Helnwein, is part of the Waterford Fringe Festival and includes a variety of work placed at strategic locations in the city, such as the Quays, the Clock Tower, City Hall and John Roberts Square. Among the material featured in the images are depictions of children with guns and a child lying down, covered with blood, as well as various shots of children with their eyes closed, as if dead. ...

“For me, the reaction so far in Waterford is very good because people are talking about the theme of war and exploitation. For a child to grow up now, it’s the toughest time ever because children are flooded with violence in the media and internet and computer games where the only thing to do is kill people and they are very graphic. Entertainment is very violent but as long as it’s entertainment, it’s fine, but as soon as you do it as art, people get very sensitive. In my art I’m only reflecting the world and I wanted to raise awareness and make people think.” ...

"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 of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, has assembled a thought-provoking selection of Helnwein’s works and provided an insightful essay on his art in this exhibition catalogue.
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." ...

Clive Wilkinson's renovation of Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, made him a design star. But the 53-year-old architect had never designed a house before he started on his own, in West Hollywood. ...

A magyar páros ambiciózus művéről sajnos körülbelül ugyanazt lehet elmondani, mint az Arkham Elmegyógyintézetről. Fájdalom, mert Futaki Attila egységesen szürkés tónusú, olykor legföljebb a vér vörösével felzaklatott, némiképp Gottfried Helnwein hatásáról árulkodó nagyszerű fotorealista akvarellképei méltóbb történetet érdemeltek volna, nem pedig egy olyan sokrétűnek szánt, de leginkább inkoherens összeomlási fabulát, amelyben egymást követik a közhelyes megfogalmazások (a főhős zárkája "rideg falai" között "felejtése börtönébe száműzi" magát, de legalább nem kínozza "többé a választás felelősségének démona", bár végül "a közöny" "üres, emberi ronccsá" teszi). Nem beszélve a zavaró stílustörésekről: fennköltnek vágyott sorok ("Mit ér a szabadság a hús vagy a lélek akarása nélkül?") közé a legközönségesebb fordulatok ("Nem volt új a szitu.") ékelődnek. ...

In der Kategorie „beste Ausstattung" wird Gottfried Helnwein für sein Bühnenbild von „Ring II" des Choreographischen Theaters Johann Kresnik gelobt. Auch in der Kategorie „bestes Schauspielhaus" findet Bonn Erwähnung. Die Abschaffung der Biennale Bonn wird in der Umfrage von den Kritikern ausdrücklich bedauert. ...

In the Republican Last Chance Saloon is a Norman Rockwell-style McCain, talking tough about Czechoslovakia, Iraq and jobs with blue-collar workers. (How early 1990s of him.) They paint Obama as a 1950s-style Gottfried Helnwein figure. But instead of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and James Dean in the diner, Obama sits alongside Paris and Britney. McCain gives new meaning to "Audacity Watch" with his sexually provocative, racially charged, dumbed-down subliminal ad campaign ...

Sono disparati i motivi che possono indurre a visitare la splendida e misterica capitale ceca, non ultimo i numerosi eventi commemorativi per i cinquant’anni decorsi dai tragici eventi della Primavera di Praga, ma le sale della galleria d’arte moderna del Rudolfinum, l’edificio in stile neorinascimentale che affaccia sulle acque della Moldava, diventa sino al termine di agosto meta d’obbligo per tutti gli amanti delle mostre epocali. Vi si tiene infatti un’esauriente retrospettiva dedicata al controverso artista austriaco Gottried Helnwein, dall’evocativo titolo Angels sleeeping: un percorso che si snoda in cinque sezioni rappresentative di altrettanti periodi della produzione del pittore, fotografo e performer. ...

An alternative title to “Angels Sleeping” for this exhibition could be “All Hail to the Wounded Child,” as many of the works center on irreparably wounded children (both externally and internally) as the innocent victims of war. The children in Helnwien’s works may also represent the lost or destroyed child in all of us, not only as victims of war, but as victims of modern society, with all its mindless violence and perverse attraction to aggressive mobs and disturbances. If there were a soundtrack to this exhibition, it would be a long, endless scream.
Tony Ozuna, The Prague Post, 02. July 2008 ...

Na brněnské výstavě Bolf představil své černé voskové obrazy. Touto jednoduchou technikou (rozpuštěné voskové barvy nalévá na papír, přetře tuší a vyryje kresbu), kterou zkoušejí už školáci v hodinách kreslení, odkazuje na dětství jako na věk počínajícího traumatu. Často zobrazuje děti, které se v jakémsi apatickém transu sebepoškozují, nebo jsou ovázány fáčem a oblepeny náplastmi; ty ale nestačí skrýt příliš hluboké rány. V tomto bodě lze připomenout i hyperrealistickou tvorbu rakouského umělce Gottfrieda Helnweina (narozen 1948), který právě vystavuje v Rudolfinu. Jeho tématem je také mlčenlivě trpící dítě, často rovněž ovázané obvazy s prosakující krví. Zaměřuje se především na deformaci obličeje, jehož někdy kus docela chybí. Ne nadarmo jedna z jeho maleb tematizuje holandské anatomie. Ačkoliv plátno nese název Představení v chrámu (1998) a odkazuje tak na christologickou legendu, vizuálně cituje spíš holandský skupinový portrét lékařských gild rozestavených kolem mrtvého korpusu pitvaného těla (zde je to holčička v bílých šatech). Portrétovaní dospělí muži mají jizvami znetvořené obličeje. Celý výjev prostupuje symbolistně mrtvolný chlad modrého monochromu. Dítě je bez poskvrnky, zatímco zjizvené obličeje mužů nabádají diváka k tomu, aby o nich uvažoval jako o stvůrách. Někteří diváci v nich však spatřují ochránce nevinnosti, jak poznamenal sám Helnwein v rozhovoru pro ČRo3. ...

GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN "A comunicação de Helnwein não se restringe a normas de aceitação nem assume compromissos, seguindo de uma forma particularmente identificável uma linguagem onde abunda a perda de inocência, questões relacionadas com a exploração da imagem pela publicidade e a iconografia do universo infantil. ...

It’s immediately obvious that Angels Sleeping is going to be both powerful and unsettling. The first picture that catches the eye, “Modern Sleep I” (Moderní spánek I), is of a young girl wearing only a man’s jacket that brings to mind a Nazi uniform. A tear is in the corner of her eye and she appears to be looking fixedly at some object outside the painting’s scope. The light on her sweet-looking face and flashes of bare skin gives a sense of vulnerability and innocence that combines uncomfortably with how she is dressed. It creates a sense of foreboding in any observer thinking about what circumstances could lead to her being dressed this way. This is just the beginning of images that bring the maltreatment of children to the forefront, in particular Helnwein’s merciless references his country’s Nazi past. ...

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Waterford Fringe Festival will present a spectacular outdoor exhibition of Helnweins work in Sept of this year. The exhibition involves a series of his paintings screen printed to very large images and displayed on prominent Waterford city centre premises. ...

Ve dvaceti namaloval Gottfried Helnwein vlastní krví obraz "führera“. Vedení grafické školy ve Vídni, kde studoval, obraz zabavilo a autora vyloučilo. Nyní je někdejšímu studentu-provokatérovi šedesát, při osobním setkání působí vyrovnaně a vyhlíží jako rocker a šaman v jedné osobě. Jeho hyperrealistické obrazy připomínají temnou nacistickou minulost, obrazy nevinných dětí ztělesňujících krásu a čistotu rané duše. Výstavu nazvanou Angels Sleeping hostí do konce srpna pražská Galerie Rudolfinum. ...

Die akrobatische Leistung des Abends ist einmal mehr atemberaubend: Auf einem Lichtring hoch über der Bühne stehen die Engel, die den halb himmlischen und halb irdischen Helden aus ihrer Mitte verstoßen - und in eine apokalyptische Welt senden, um "Gottes liebste Gabe" zu suchen. Fortan kämpft Seyffert, dessen asketische Gestalt mit seiner artistischen Maßlosigkeit korrespondiert, um den erneuten Aufstieg.
Dass all dies mit den Bildern und Videos von Gottfried Helnwein sowie mit einer Mischung aus esoterischer Liturgie und martialischen Beats unterlegt wird, verstärkt die beklemmende Wirkung. Denn Helnwein hat mit seinen Gemälden von toten Kindern sowie von bandagierten und gewaltsam deformierten Gesichtern eine Marktlücke besetzt, die in ihrer szenischen Übersetzung mit Obszönität spielt. ...