Wolfgang Bauer's essay "Inspired by Helnwein"

October 30th, 1999

Catalogue of the 'Apokalypse' Show at the Dominican Church in Krems, Austria

"As long ago as 1963 a fellow-artist and I imagined the horrible future of a free-lance artist. The topic of our discussion was not so much finances as the necessity of letting go and totally abandoning oneself. At the time I had the idea of inventing something like a 'fitness training of geniuses'. In retrospect I must say that I know very few artists who have persevered in this imaginary training programme. Gottfried Helnwein is one of them."

INSPIRED BY HELNWEIN

by Wolfgang Bauer
1999

Helnwein likes to linger at boundaries. Whatever wants to pass through is closely examined by him. Like Goya he is one of the magic customs officials of art. (Rousseau, on the other hand, always stayed on the other side of the border even though he really was a customs official by profession!)
Whoever wants to enter the plane of art has to be able to understand and communicate reality. Helnwein is not only an artist but also a perfect transformer. The so called imagination should not come into play at the beginning of a world, but its nuclear power should be releases only at the moment of transformation, of metamorphosis.

https://www.helnwein.com/texts/selected_authors/article_6338-Wolfgang-Bauer