ARTISTHelnwein

Gottfried Helnwein’s paintings of children are both touching and disturbing. The hyperrealistic character of his images serves to intensify this effect still further. The vulnerable and defenseless child serves as the central motif in his examination of the themes of pain, injury, and violence.

The most complete monograph realized about the Austrian painter, photographer, filmmaker, performer and set designer, born in Vienna in 1948. The works of Helnwein show the bare truth where society instead hides and removes. What emerges by leafing through the pages of this monograph is the obsession that accompanies the artistic career of this notable Austrian artist, marked by the wish to breakdown the rhetoric of war, the constructions of self-absolution, the mystifications of religious institutions in whose pitfalls men periodically fall as if they had not committed the same mistake over and over again.

Erste museale Werkschau von Gottfried Helnwein in Österreich seit 1985. Der österreichische Künstler hat seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre zunächst in Deutschland gelebt hat und ist heute in Los Angeles und Irland ansässig. Die Ausstellung im grossen Saal des Museums zeigt Werke aus allen Schaffensperioden seit den frühen 1970er Jahren. Dabei steht das Thema des menschlichen Gesichts im Mittelpunkt, mit dem Helnwein sich in mehr als drei Jahrzehnten künstlerischer Arbeit auseinander gesetzt hat.

" Es ist kein Zufall, dass unter all den grossen Retrospektiven, die wir (in der Albertina) gezeigt haben, von Gerhard Richter bis Georg Baselitz, diese Ausstellung von Gottfried Helnwein mit Abstand die am meisten die Menschen bewegende Ausstellung war, die die Menschen zum Teil zu Tränen gerührt hat. Ich habe es fast nicht glauben können. Aber Gottfried Helnwein trifft die Menschen ins Mark, er bewegt die Herzen. Und es freut mich natürlich, wenn man zeigen kann, dass Kunst nicht L’art pour l’art sein muss, sondern eine Botschaft haben kann, die die Menschen betrifft und berührt. " Klaus Albrecht Schröder Direktor, Albertina Museum Wien

Susan Crowley, Carmen Gaitán Rojo, Luis Alberto Ayala Blanco, Nicolás Alvarado, Marco Antonio Silva Barón

catalogue

catalogue

Exhibition Catalogue

One man show Exhibition catalogue

exhibition-cataogue ..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 was the human condition. The metaphor for his art, although it included self-portraits, was 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.

Monograph texts by Alexander Borovsky, Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art Peter Selz Klaus Honnef William Burroughs Heiner Müller

text by Andreas Mäckler.

Artist of inner Turmoil. Gottfried Helnwein's works from the 1980's are represented by the self-portraits in his "Black Mirror" series. However, these works reach far beyond the boundaries of the ordinary self-portrait. They reflect the inner wants and desperation which lies within the viewer's own self. Helnwein points out the new form of the modern self-portrait which involves the creator and viewer alike.

Artist of inner Turmoil. Gottfried Helnwein's works from the 1980's are represented by the self-portraits in his "Black Mirror" series. However, these works reach far beyond the boundaries of the ordinary self-portrait. They reflect the inner wants and desperation which lies within the viewer's own self. Helnwein points out the new form of the modern self-portrait which involves the creator and viewer alike.

Einzelausstellung, Musée d’Art Moderne, Strasbourg texts by Peter Gorsen and Heiner Müller.

GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN 構成・解説　伊藤俊治 リブロポート オーストリア＝ウィーンはヤバい芸術家を数多く輩出／排出している。シェーンベルク、ベルク、ウェーベルンら新ウィーン楽派の音楽、シーレ、ココシュカらの表現主義的な絵画、フックスらのウィーン幻想派。 そして、我らがヒーロー、ゴットフリート・ヘルンヴァイン。

softcover

texts by H.C. Artmann, Wolfgang Bauer, Barbara Frischmuth and Botho Strauss.