July 28th, 2009
ArtBusiness.com
Modernism Gallery: Gottfried Helnwein - The Murmur of the Innocents.
Jennifer Jeffrey:
I've walked into Modernism, and I can't seem to leave. A young girl of perhaps 9 or 10 is the central figure in a riveting series, called The Murmur of the Innocents by renowned artist Gottfried Helnwein. She is large-eyed and blond-haired, with a gravity that belies her years, both mesmerizing and painful to look at. I make the rounds of the gallery with the rest of the visitors, each of us transfixed. First she looks directly at us, then she's lost in her own sadness, oblivious to our stares. Around the next corner, she's sullen, then defiant, then helpless in a blindfold; finally she's bloody and bandaged, and we don't know why. I finally tear myself away, but she stays with me, along with the questions I cannot voice.