Although the majority of Gottfried Helnwein’s paintings from the past two decades take the solitary faces of young girls as their subjects, many others are groupings of multiple figures that use the conventions of Baroque and Mannerist pictorial composition to suggest or outrightly posit a dramatic confrontation between innocence and evil. Never is it made clear which will survive, and this ambiguity is exactly what makes Helnwein’s figure groupings disturbing, fascinating and compelling, simply because they give the viewer little choice but to complete the outcome of that confrontation in his or her own imagination. Moreover, they also remind the viewer that such a confrontation always exists, regardless of whatever ideological mask its participants may chose to wear. In these paintings, no state of blamelessness goes unmolested, even when the molesters claim to have nothing but the best of intentions.

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MARK VAN PROYEN - San Francisco Art Institute

Mark Van Proyen is associate professor in the Painting department and in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies. He is an artist and critic whose visual work has been exhibited widely. He is a columnist and critic for Artweek, a contributing editor for Art in America, and has contributed writing to Art Issues, and Bad Subjects. Art Criticism dedicated an entire volume to his Administrativism and Its Discontents (Volume 21, Number 2) 2006, published by the Department of Art, State University of 
New York at Stony Brook.