1997
1997 Retrospective at the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg,
The collectors Peter and Irene Ludwig donate 53 works of Helnwein to the Museum Ludwig in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg
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1997

Brian Eno attends the opening of the Helnwein retrospective at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg
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1997

"Hamletmaschine" by Heiner Müller
Version by Gert Hof and Gottfried Helnwein, with Les Tambours du Bronx and Caspar Brötzmann
47th Berliner Festwochen, Arena, Berlin and Muffathalle, Munich
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1997

Photo-session with the German industrial metal band Rammstein at Schloss Burgbrohl
Rammstein's album "Sehnsucht (album)" is released with six different covers by Gottfried Helnwein.
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1997
The New York Times writes about Kent Logan, one of Americas leading collectors of contemporary art: "He amasses his art in true corporate fashion: with flow charts mapping what he has and what he doesn't. Hs most extensive acquisitions include Francesco Clemente's "Self-Portrait" (1984), Mark Tansey's "Occupation" (1984), Cindy Sherman's "Film Still #6" (1977), Gottfried Helnwein's "Untitled (Child)" (1996) and Anselm Kiefer's "Operation Sea Lion" (1975)."
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1997

Helnwein moves with his family to Ireland.
At first he lives in Dublin and in 1998 he acquires a castle in County Tipperary where lives and works since then.
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1997
Helnwein's painting "Dresden" at the Opening group show of the Ludwig Museum in the National Chinese Museum of Fine Art, Beijing.
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1996

Helnwein works on the photo-series "Poems"
a series of photographic pictures of people who have died a violent death
He photographs the photographs of dead people and again and again photographs the photographs of the photographs ultimately to the point of dissolution.
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1996
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, photography selected from the museum collection.
group show
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1996

Collectors and founders of many museums, Peter and Irene Ludwig, pay several visits to Helnwein's studio at Schloss Burgbrohl
They acquire over 100 works of art from Helnwein, amogst them "Head of a Child" (Kindskopf), "48 Portraits and Dresden, and comission Helnwein to paint their portraits for the State Russian Museum St. Petersburg.
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1996

Helnwein starts the painting cycle "Epiphany"
"Epihany I" first exhibitied at Modernism Gallery San Francisco
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1996

One-man show in the Fine Arts Museum, Otaru, Japan. Installation "Neunter November Nacht"
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1996

Set and costumes for "Pasolini" at the Schauspielhaus theatre in Hamburg;
directed by Hans Kresnik.
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1995

Group exhibition at Ludwig Museum Schloss Oberhausen: "Versuche zu trauern" ("Trying to Mourne")
master pieces from the Ludwig Collection from antiquity to the present day.
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1995

Helnwein art-works for Michael Jackson's "HISTORY" album
HISTORY - Past, Present and Future
page 33: "Scream"-
("Das Lied / The Song" watercolor, 1980)
page 37: "Little Susie"-
("Lichtkind", photograph, grattage, 1972 )
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1995

Installation "Ninth November Night - Selektion" in Berlin, Kulturbrauerei.
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1995

"Faces" one-man show, Houston Centre for Photography.
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1995
"It's only Rock and Roll", Phoenix Museum of Art, Arizona
Rock and Roll Currents in Contemporary Art
Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
Lakeview Museum of Arts and Science, Peoria, Illinois
Nexus Contemporary Arts Center, Atlanta, Georgia
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland
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1995
Installation of a picture of a monochromic blue face of 25x16 metres (75x50 feet) in Vienna on a building in the city centre
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1994

Helnwein travels with Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley to Budapest
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1994

"Faces" one-man show in the Centre International Contemporain d'Art in Montreal.
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1994

Helnwein meets Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles
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1994
One man show - Mittelrhein-Museum Koblenz, Koblenz
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1994

Helnwein meets Martin Kippenberger in Cologne
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1994
"Das Jahrzehnt der Malerei" (The Decade of Painting)
Austrian Artists of the Schömer Collection, Vienna
in the Kunstverein, Augsburg, Germany.
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1994
One-man show in the Städtisches Museum, Schleswig
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1994
Helnwein works on the "Fire"- series
a series of dark monochrome paintings with the faces of Arthur Rimbaud, Jim Morrison, Malcolm X, Mishima, Mayakovski, Rosa Luxemburg, Ulrike Meinhof and others.
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1993

One-man show "Faces" at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn
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1993
One man-show at the Josef Albers Museum, Quadrat Bottrop, Moderne Galerie
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1993
Helnwein meets James Brown in Germany, who sits for a portrait photo-session
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1993
In the Ludwig Forum in Aachen the "48 Portraits" are shown in the "Künstlerportraits" exhibition
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1993
"Aktion-Reaktion" (Action-Reaction) exhibition of the Austrian painters Rainer, Nitsch, Brus, and Helnwein, works from the Schömer collection, at the Foundation Fiecht, Austria
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1993
"Faces", one-man show in the Munich Stadtmuseum
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1992

First one-man show at Modernism Gallery in San Francisco
Martin Muller, founder of Modernism San Francisco, detected Helnwein's work at Basel Art fair some years before. Since 1992 Modernism San Francisco represents Helnwein in the US
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1992

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art shows Helnwein's self-portait "Black Mirror"
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1992

Der nackte Jeanmaire
Künstler Helnwein schockt die Schweiz
Jeanmaire erregt die Schweiz von neuem: Das Plakat zu "Jeanmaire - ein Stück Schweiz" zeigt den "Landesverräter" völlig nackt! Und noch bevor es hing, wurde das provokative Bild des österreichischen Kultkünstlers Gottfried Helnwein verboten.
Die Hosen hat er ihm runtergelassen, den Brigadierhut durfte Jeanmaire behalten: Gottfried Helnwein, österreichischer Kultkünstler, in seinem Atelier in Burg Brohl bei Bonn mit dem Original zum Theaterplakat.
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1992

Helnwein entwirft den Neubau der Seebrücke Sellin auf der Insel Rügen
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1992
One-man show at the Pfalzgalerie Museum in Kaiserslautern and at the Kunstmuseum in Thun
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1992

Helnwein meets Roy Lichtenstein in New York
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1992

Helnwein meets with Roy Disney at Coolmain Castle, his irish home in Co. Cork, Ireland
Helnwein briefs Roy Disney on the preparation of the Carl Barks museum retrospective and the publication of the book "Wer ist Carl Barks?" (Who is Carl Barks?), and discusses with him the influence of Walt Disney's aesthetics on the culture of the 20th century.
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1992
One-man show, Goethe-Institut, Centre culturell allemand, Paris
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1992
Helnwein's poster for the theatre play "Jeanmaire" by Swiss poet and playwright Urs Widmer causes tumult in Switzerland
The police bans the poster from being displayed, the Swiss parliament discusses the scandal and the sunday-preacher of national Television dedicates his weekly sermon to condem Helnwein's painting
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1992
Helnwein meets Lou Reed in London
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1991

Installation "Kindskopf" (Child's Head) in the Minoriten Church in Krems, Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum (Museum of Lower Austria)
Helnwein paints a 6x4 m (18x12 feet) child's head for the apse of the early Gothic basilica. Ten days before the opening he has his children Amadeus, Ali Elvis and Mercedes paint large-format canvases which he then arranges in the basilica
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1991

Karel VII Schwarzenberg, chancellor of Václav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, invites Gottfried Helnwein to Prag
Schwarzenberg receives Helnwein in his office at the The Prague Castle, seat of the president of the Czech Republic and discusses Helnwein's work
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1991

Works on the "48 Portraits"
a series of 48 monochrome red paintings of women (oil on canvas) as a counterpart to Gerhard Richter's "48 Portraits" of 1971, which depict only men in monochrome grey.
The cycle of paintings is first shown in the Galerie Koppelmann in Cologne, and later aquired by collector Peter Ludwig for the Ludwig Museum in Aachen.
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1991

Helnwein meets Alice Schwarzer, the leading contemporary German feminist, while working on his cycle "48 portraits", which marks the beginning of their friendship
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1991

Cologne art Collector and patron Prof. Fritz Gruber and his wife Renate invite Helnwein to join their circle of friends (artists, writers, photographers, curators and intellectuals) who meet on a regular basis at his salons in his villa in Cologne
Later some of the friends, amongst them Brian Eno, Alice Schwarzer and Alfred Biolek, rent a river-boat, originally built for King Faruk of Egypt and embarke on several journeys on the Nile. Hence the group called itself "The Nile-Society" (Nil-Gesellschaft)
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1991
Helnwein meets David Bowie in Los Angeles
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1991

Helnwein visits Charles Bukowski in Los Angeles
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1991
Helnwein meets John Cale in Brussels
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1991
A group of German Lutheran pastors start a character assassination campaign against Helnwein, that turns into a witch-hunt over several years
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1991

Helnwein works on a series of dark, monochrome paintings
He applies more and more layers of oil varnish to his realistic blue monochrome pictures till the subjects are almost indiscernible.
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1990
One-man show in the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne. Installation "Neunter November Nacht"
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1990
Set and costumes for "Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats, dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade"
(The Persecution and Murder of Jean Paul Marat, Performed by the Drama Group of the Hospice at Charenton under the Direction of Monsieur de Sade) by Peter Weiss, directed by Hans Kresnik at the Staatstheater in Stuttgart.
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1990

Photo session with Keith Richards at the Berlin Wall
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1990

Collaboration with Marlene Dietrich on the book "Some Facts about Myself", for the occasion of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Her essay that gave the book it's title was the last text that Marlene Dietrich wrote in her life
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1990

Helnwein meets former German Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt, who sits for a porttrait foto session
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1990
One-man show - Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Einzelausstellung
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1990
One-man show - Kunstverein Ludwigsburg
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1990
One-man show - Museum St. Ingbert, St. Ingbert, and installation „Neunter November Nacht“
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1990

Helnwein meets Leni Riefenstahl in Munich
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1990
Helnwein meets Miles Davis and writes an essay for Miles' first exhibition of his paintings at Museum Morsbroich in Germany
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1989

One-man show at Folkwang Museum in Essen
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1989

Helnwein meets William S. Burroughs in Lawrence, Kansas
Burroughs says about Helnwein: "It is the function of the artist to evoke the experience of surprised recognition: to show the viewer what he knows but does not know that he knows.
Helnwein is a master of surprised recognition"
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1989

Helnwein meets Norman Mailer in Provincetown
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1989
Helnwein meets with Lech Walensa, President of the Republic of Poland, in Germany, who sits for a portrait session
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1989

Helnwein meets Keith Haring in Düsseldorf
Keith draws on Ali Helnwein's hand
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1989
Helnwein meets Elia Kazan in New York
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1989

Helnwein's photographic work from 1970 to 1989 is published by Dai Nipon in Japan. Text by Toshiharu Ito
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1989

Cooperation with German playwright Heiner Müller and choreographer Hans Kresnik on a play about Antonin Artaud
Heiner Müller says about Helnwein: "How does a friendly person like Helnwein stand making his - excellent - painting into a mirror of the terrors of this century? Or is it that he can't stand not doing it?"
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1989

Work on the set and costumes for "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff at the Bayerische Staatsoper opera house (opening of the 1990 Munich Festival)
When Wolfgang Sawallisch, the head of the Staatsoper, sees the radical costume design, he is so shocked that he immediately calls a press conference and announces the sacking of Gottfried Helnwein and director Hans Kresnik
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1989
Stage design and costumes for "Oedipus" by Sophocles at Hans Kresnik's Choreographic Theatre in Heidelberg
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1989

Torino Fotografia 1989, Biennale Internationale
Gottfried Helnwein, David Hockney, Clegg and Guttmann
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1988

Large installation in the city center of Cologne, between the Ludwig Museum and the Cologne Cathedral: "Neunter November Nacht" (Ninth November Night)
A four-meter-high, hundred-meter-long picture lane in which Helnwein recalls the "Reichskristallnacht", the beginning of the Holocaust, on 9 November 1938. He confronts the passersby with larger-than-life children's faces lined up in a seemingly endless row, as if for concentration camp selection. Just days into the exhibit, these portraits were vandalized by unknown persons, symbolically cutting the throats of the depicted children's faces.
Since then large scale installations in public spaces became an important part of his work
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1988
Helnwein established a studio in Tribeca New York
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1988

Set, costumes, and make-up for "Macbeth", a production of Hans Kresnik's choreographic theatre in the Stadttheater in Heidelberg
The play is given an enthusiastic reception by audience and critics and is later awarded the Theatre Prize of Berlin
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1988
The poster for Peter Zadek's production of "Lulu" by Frank Wedekind in the Schauspielhaus theatre in Hamburg unleashes a storm of outrage
The Deputy Mayor of Hamburg protests against the poster.
A "German-Language Citizens' Initiative for the Protection of Human Dignity" lays charges against Helnwein and Zadek for pornography. The discussion about this image spreads beyond the borders of the country. The Mayor of the City of Vienna, Helmut Zilk, is enthusiastic about the poster and gives Helnwein his hearty congratulations
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1988

beginning of the friendship with Antje Vollmer, Vice-speaker of German parliament
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1988

Helnwein meets Michael Jackson in Germany
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1988

Beginning of the friendship with choreographer/director Johann Kresnik
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1988

Helnwein visits Arno Breker, Hitler's favorite artist, in his studio in Düsseldorf, and photographs him holding a picture of Joseph Beuys
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1988

Together with Vice-speaker of German parliament Antje Vollmer, Helnwein initiates a discussion with the Green Party in German parliament about the so called "degenerate art" in relation to the official art of the 3rd Reich
This was the first cultural debate of the German Green Party
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1988
Helnwein works simultaneously on a series of large-format, monochromatic-blue, realistic oil and acrylic paintings, as well as on a series of monochrome abstract paintings.
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1988

Participates in the exhibition "Selection 4" Polaroid Art of the last 10 years in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and in the "photokina" in Cologne
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1987

"Helnwein - Der Untermensch", self-portraits from 1970 - 1987, one-man show at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Strasbourg
Roland Recht, Chief Curator of Museums in Strasbourg, stated: "The Viennese Helnwein is part of a tradition going back to the 18th century, to which Messerschmidt's grimacing sculptures also belong, on which one of Freud's pupils wrote a long treatise.
One sees, too, the common ground of these works with those of Arnulf Rainer or Nitsch, two other Viennese, who display their own bodies in the frame of reference of injury, pain, and death. One can also see this fascination for body language goes back to the expressive gesture in the work of Egon Schiele."
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1987

Installation and performance (Exhibition-Opera) "Der Untermensch" in the Kunsthalle Bremen
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1987

Helnwein meets with Simon Wesenthal and discusses his art-project "Ninth November Night" with him.
Helnwein plans an Installation in rememberence of "Kristallnacht" 50 years ago, in the city center of Cologne - between the Ludwig Museum and the Cathedral.
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1987

Aktion "Gott der Untermenschen"
"God of Sub-Humans"
Performance at camp Kopal of the Austrian army, February, 1987. Helnwein uses tanks and real ammunition
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1987

May 15, Helnwein's son Wolfgang Amadeus is born
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1987

From 1987 to 1989 Helnwein works on a series of pastels
"Death of Pinocchio" (Der Tod des Pinocchio), "God in Panic" (Gott in Panik), "Modern Sleep", "Burnt Angel" and others
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1987

One-man show in the Leopold Hoesch Museum in Düren and in the Villa Stuck in Munich
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1987

At a Helnwein solo show at Freie Volksbühne Berlin, the paintings "Moral" and "Losing Time" are stolen from the exhibition. The works have never been recovered
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1987

Parallel to the large-format, multi-part paintings and the photographic work, Helnwein now also turns to crayon drawings
"Knabe und Neger" (Boy and Negro),
"Triumph der Wissenschaft" (Triumph of Science),
"Nachgeburt der Venus" (The Afterbirth of Venus),
"Das Lügengebet" (The Prayer of Lies).
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1986

One-man show in the Mittelrhein Museum, Koblenz, and in the Freie Volksbühne theatre in Berlin
Podium discussion "Violence, Sexuality, Antiquity" with Heiner Müller, Hans Neuenfels, Ernest Bornemann and Gottfried Helnwein.
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1986

He works on a series of large-format self-portrait metamorphoses, which have their origin in the self-portrait as screaming man blinded by forks
Start of a series of photographic self-dramatisations using the themes of dying hero, SS man, martyr, sufferer, friend of children, and mummified corpse.
"Gott der Untermenschen" (God of Sub-Humans),
"Das stille Leuchten der Avantgarde" (The Silent Glow of the Avant-Garde),
"Bete Herr, denn wir sind nah!" (Pray, Lord, for We Are Near!),
"Eine Träne auf Reisen" (A Tear on a Journey),
"Der Tod des Expertentums" (The Death of Expertise),
"Partisanenliebe" (Partisan Love),
"Blitzkrieg der Liebe" (Blitzkrieg of Love),
"Geheime Elite" [Secret Elite],
"Gefäss der Leidenschaft" (Vessel of Passion).
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1985

One-man show at the Albertina museum, Vienna
Catalogue with texts by Walter Koschatzky and Peter Gorsen
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1985

In Germany, he radically changes his way of working and now begins a series of large-format paintings consisting of several parts (diptychs, triptychs, poliptychs)
In doing so he combines photo-murals with abstract gestural and monochrome painting in oil and acrylic, also using reproductions of Caspar David Friedrich paintings and war documentary photographs. He assembles these to form what the critic Peter Gorsen calls "Bilderstrassen" (picture lanes). In doing this, Helnwein closely examines taboo subject matters and tackles terms such as "Untermensch" (sub-human), "entartete Kunst" (degenerate art), "lebensunwertes Leben" (life unworthy of life).
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1985

Helnwein acquires a medieval castle close to Cologne and the Rhine-river, where he lives and works untlil his move to Ireland in 1997
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1985

Rudolf Hausner, recommends Helnwein as his successor as professor of the master-class for painting at the University of Visual Art in Vienna
Helnwein declines, leaves Vienna and moves with his family to Germany
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