ARTISTHelnwein

Con todo estos antecedentes históricos, no es de sorprender que lo que sucede con la Muestra del Plastico León Ferrari y su posterior Censura es algo similar a la Censura que sufrio el artista plastico Gottfried Helnwein en Austria, hace unos anos, por sectores pacatos de derechas.

Do you have any art in your home? - Gottfried Helnwein I own. I have a few pieces of his from his recent L.A. series. We ultimately ended up working together on a video project for Peter Gabriel [“The Barry Williams Show”]. Some things that are familiar lose their gravity after time. When someone like him makes the familiar so continually provocative, you can find a deepening appreciation for something.

Adults bring a trunkful of contradictory cultural baggage to any representations of children. That's what makes the work of Helnwein so powerful. In his show, "The Child," at the Legion of Honor (of the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums), deformed infants and bandaged children stir feelings of pity, defiance and uneasiness about exploitation. There's an ambiguously disturbing painting of a girl aiming a gun into an open refrigerator and another of a bare-breasted mother and child surrounded by Aryan soldiers. But the most haunting images may be the ones of children who seem strangely oblivious to the adult gaze. Some of Helnwein's children peer right past the onlooker. Others sleep, dreaming of anything but us behind their silky eyelids. And some, like the enormous, half- shadowed "Head of a Child" at the Legion, see straight through us with cloudless, infinite blue eyes. Steven Winn, San Francisco Chronicle, 17. November 2004

Das von Peter Hajek 1984 inszenierte Porträt begibt sich auf die Spuren von Helnweins Leben und Werk. Er wurde in den 1970er-Jahren vor allem durch seine hyperrealistischen Bilder von verwundeten und bandagierten Kindern bekannt und hat sich seit den 1980er-Jahren vor allem der Fotografie und großformatigen Installationen im öffentlichen Raum – meistens mit einem sozialen oder gesellschaftspolitischen Anliegen – zugewandt. Kinder, oft seine eigenen, sind auch der Rahmen, in dem Helnwein bei der Arbeit, im Familienverbund oder beim Spiel präsentiert wird und durch welchen er in dieser Mischform aus fiktivem Dokument und realer Fiktion sowohl künstlerisch als auch sozial kommuniziert

"...When I look at a work of Art I ask myself: does it challenge me, does it touch, move or inspire me? Do I learn something from it, does it startle or amaze me - do I get excited, upset? That is the test any artwork has to pass: can it create an emotional impact on a human being even when he has no education or any information about art? I’ve always had a problem with art that you can only understand if you have a degree in art history, and I have a problem with theories in general. Most of them are bullshit anyway. Most critics and theorists have little respect for artists, and I think the importance of theory in art is totally overrated. Real art is self-evident. Real art is intense, challenging, enchanting, exciting and unsettling; it has a quality and magic that you cannot explain. Like the Blues, a poem of Rimbaud or Rembrandt's late self-portraits. Art is not logic, and if you really want to experience it, your mind and rational thinking will be of little help. Art is something spiritual that you can only experience with your senses, your heart, your soul. Think of Bob Dylan, Hendrix, Mozart, Howling Wolf, Goya, Bukowski or Robert Crumb - do you need to know the theories that some busybodies might attach to their art in order to experience it? Marcel Duchamp said: "The work of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from the bipolar action gives birth to something - like electricity." These two poles is all you need.

A documentary on the works of Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein commemorating the Reichskristallnacht will bw screened on November 13th and 14th 2004. Noted Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein, obsessed with the fact that his society could ignore the deaths of six million victims, dedicates his art to Holocaust remembrance. When the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht passes without commemoration, he creates an heroic art installation. Co-stars Maximiliam Schell, Sean Penn, Jason Lee.

"Ninth November Night" documents Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein's sprawling 1988 art installation recalling the horrors of the Holocaust -- and the exhibit's defacement by vandals shortly after it was unveiled. Directed by Henning Lohner and featuring on-camera appearances by Helnwein collectors Sean Penn and Jason Lee, the documentary short is largely the product of the passion and persistence of Malibu producer Gisela Guttman. When she struggled to find a venue in Los Angeles willing to show Helnwein's large-scale installation, she decided to make a documentary instead. The art installation, which revolves around a series of pictures of small children, was vandalized after its initial showing in Germany. "The one thing I wanted to do is just be sure that people can see the entire installation, I just really wanted to bring it to Los Angeles, no matter how," Guttman said. "The power of those images really comes across on-screen, and that's what I wanted people to see and to think about."

"Well, probably intentionally, except for moments of non-sober discussion, I've sort of made it a conscious effort to not analyze anything I love too much. And I love this art, and for me part of the reason I think is a professional reason - for me as somebody who aspires to creativity myself. When you find someone in the arts, whether it's in your medium or in another medium, that raises the bar for you, that reinvigorates your own pursuit of affecting people and out of a sharing what you count on as some kind of a common chord in us. Whether it's through imagry, words, sounds. I think that as an artist my strongest reaction to Helnwein's work is that it challenges me to be better at what I do. There are very few people that achieve utter excellence in what they do. And I think that Gottfried Helnwein is certainly one of those people." Sean Penn

"Helnwein"s fight for expression and stance against oppression are reasons why I chose him as an artistic partner." Marilyn Manson

New works paintings and photography

Dance icon Gregor Seyffert, and Gottfried Helnwein, internationally renowned artist and stage designer, came up with a highly intelligent concept for the oratorio, which relied heavily on dance, but also comprised whatever means a modern, multimedia stage design might offer. Consequently, the audience’s eyes almost popped out of their heads. With all the media activities, one might almost forget the enchanting, beautiful music, and singing. Storming, unceasing applause by an enthusiastic Düsseldorf audience for an evening which is unlikely to be easily forgotten. This was an example of lively music theatre, which, unchallenged, not only stole the glory of Deutsche Oper am Rhein, which presently enjoys a period of profound hibernation, but proved that Düsseldorf may well offer first class art. Why not more often? (Peter Bilsing)

Im Mittelpunkt stehen 100 großformatige Fotografien von Robert Mapplethorpe, Gottfried Helnwein, Allen Ginsberg, Gerard Malanga, Marcia Resnick und anderen. Die Beat Generation - Sie zogen gegen die bürgerliche Gesellschaft und deren Konventionen zu Felde. Anarchie, Provokation und Rebellion waren ihre Themen. Zunächst betrachteten sich die Schriftsteller der Beat Generation, deren Sprache und Stil sich an den Improvisationen des Jazz orientierte, lediglich als Vorhut einer literarischen Strömung. Doch schon bald verkörperten sie mit ihrer radikalen Subversivität, ihrem ausschweifenden Lebensstil, ihren Drogenexperimenten und ihrer Lust am Reisen ein ganz neues Lebensgefühl.

"NINTH NOVEMBER NIGHT" 2003, USA, Director/Producer: Henning Lohner; Producer: Gisela Guttman

How easy it is to pass by the things we do not understand and hand out a label that might comfort our ignorance. I could have v-lined for the exit, ignored my curiosity and not given the exhibit another thought. But how could have that helped me? How could I take and grow from that experience? Proverbs says to seek after understanding like silver, to turn my heart to understanding. Because I decided to seek and understand Helnwein’s art, I was able to see the empathy God has blessed him with – the explicit visions he is able to create to awaken our naive hearts to the sound of our children’s pain.

Gottfried Helnwein’s first one-man exhibition at a major American museum is long overdue. 35 years in the making, “The Child” is a collection of more than fifty drawings, watercolors, photographs, and paintings (several monumental in size). It’s also a show that shocks, and among the crowds thronging to see it, some patrons will be put off: the day I attended, a few seemed downright uncomfortable, if not hostile, toward the work. This is fine. Art should shock, and provoke, and make us feel queasy sometimes. “The Child” achieves all three, but also startles us with aching beauty, bedazzles us with painterly skill, and injects a necessary perspective into the culture’s collective conscience.

Marilyn Manson: "Gottfried Helnwein whom I collaborated with a lot invited us to get married at one of his castles in either Germany or Ireland," Manson said. "So we thought we would just have the pageantry and the ceremony of a normal wedding, but without the church. Because I don't think that I would really be welcome there."

:: Gottfried Helnwein : »Andy Warhol, New York« [1983] »Arnold Schwarzenegger, Los Angeles« [1984] »William S. Burroughs, Lawrence, USA« [1990] »Michael Jackson, Köln« [1988] »Willy Brandt, Bonn« [1989] »Keith Richards, Berlin« [1990]

Austrian-born and educated and now living Los Angeles, Helnwein employs a hyperrealist manner that will remind Americans of Gerhard Richter but, if anything, works to opposite effect. Rather than re-confirm post-modernist cynicism, Helnwein rekindles post-war anguish. This selection, going back more than three decades, emphasizes his preoccupation with the image of the child, from early Nitsch- and Schwarzkogler-influenced photo-actions (with the requisite bandages) to recent large portrait-like heads and depictions of Christ-child-like babes attracting odd, menacing crowds. A perverse streak runs through the images, but it’s not pederasty: tinged with surrealism, it’s an enduring shame and anger at the Nazi past – and the artist’s suspicion that Naziism hasn’t been eradicated.

In the film "Ninth November Night," painter Gottfried Helnwein describes his first encounter with Jewish people during his childhood in Austria after the war, a bleak and dark period, one, he says, with no singing, no laughter. He was nine years old when he saw the two people walking down the street, very close together, walking quickly, looking down the whole time. Helnwein became intrigued and wanted to know who they were. He asked everyone, all the adults, "Who are they?" But no one wanted to answer. Finally, someone said the word, one that he remembers the person had great difficulty saying - "Jews."

The film tells the story of famed Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein, obsessed with a mission to use his art to preserve the memory of Holocaust persecutions.

...these photo-paintings appear even more real than a photograph: they are hyper-real, super-saturated depictions of the world that surrounds us, as we would like to see it. Helnwein’s landscapes offer us the world as we see it in our mind’s eye, our memories. What is certain is that with these works Helnwein has raised the bar for artists to come with art that is groundbreaking in terms of scale, skill and vision. Painted mountains, fields and sky can never be the same again. ...

Editor -- I am writing to suggest that the large image accompanying the review of the Gottfried Helnwein show at the Legion of Honor ("The art of Gottfried Helnwein demands a response," Monday) was inappropriate to place on the first page of the Datebook section, especially above the fold and in such a large format. It is certainly right for art to be dark and disturbing, and certainly right for people to have relatively easy access to art of all kinds -- hey, I'm an ACLU member and an avid fan of some pretty disturbing artists -- but you have to remember that The Chronicle is a family newspaper and that the Datebook section is often the one that children turn to first when they pick up the paper to search for the comics. Anyone with younger children can easily imagine the really horrifying effect this particular image would have. Couldn't you have found an image that would have suggested the nature of Helnwein's art without being such so frightening to children? Barring that, you should have printed it inside the fold and smaller. Thanks for thinking about the kids next time. Leif Brown Berkeley

Beyond his treatment of common children's motifs - dolls, toys and ambivalent nymphets- Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein's vision is shrouded in an aura of enigmatic darkness. With his giant color portraits of stillborn babies; paintings that juxtapose Nazi-era photographs with his own images; and pictures of deformed, abjectly countenanced children swathed in bandages, Helnwein is preoccupied with the indelible suffering that mirrors the more delicate aspects of youth. His work is hauntingly gorgeous and suffused with pathos, precisely because viewers are immediately aware of the larger threat that looms within the pieces: the rupture of innocence.

Die Maschine, die immerfort höchste Qualität produziert, kann nicht still stehen. Gottfried Helnwein, 56, arbeitet auch im Sommer wie ein Besessener. Der Österreichische Maler, einer der spärlichen heimischen Weltstars seiner Profession, eröffnet soeben im "Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco" seine erste amerikanische Einzelausstellung. Verstörte, verwundete, misshandelte Kinder: das Thema lässt ihn seit den österreichischen Anfängen in den siebziger Jahren nicht los. Seit fünf Jahren bereitet er eine Retrospektive im Nationalmuseum von Peking vor, im Mai zeichnete er für die Ausstattung des Oratoriums "Das Paradies und die Peri" beim Schumannfest in Düsseldorf verantwortlich. Und derzeit arbeitet er am Bühnenbild für den "Rosenkavalier", den Maximilian Schell an Placido Domingos Opernhaus von Los Angeles inszeniert.

Helnwein's preoccupation with the dark side of modern history, including its abuse of images, has never left him. He did a whole series of paintings (the Legion show includes a couple) so dark as to appear imageless. But he intended them not as mirrors of dark times but as counterthrusts to the aggressive reach of so much contemporary culture. Despite the grotesquerie it contains, the Legion show also has elements of pathos. Helnwein nodded yes when asked whether he has made a theme of innocence. "It's a dangerous word, it's so abused and misused, but yes that's probably the basic essence of what I'm interested in." "As soon as somebody's grown up they have so many issues," he said. "When you look at a person -- what social level, what country they're from, what fashion they affect -- all this stuff comes in, but I'm interested in the stage of a human being where it's not so important whether it's a male or female, before we can tell any social background or anything, it's just ... abstract, almost." ...Probably few visitors will appreciate the detachment in Helnwein's work. They will more likely respond to his concern with the power of images. We willingly subject ourselves to their power every day without really understanding it. If nothing else, his pictures, no matter how confrontational, stand still and permit us, even defy us, to understand how they work upon us.

A new exhibit called "The Child," through Nov. 28 at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, presents images of distressed, wounded or threatened children, a topic that has fascinated Helnwein for years. Many of the children depicted in the show have deformities, bandages, scars or wounds; some appear threatened by menacing adults or by mayhem. Their suffering, indeed wrenching to witness, inevitably becomes a statement about the human condition. A 55-year-old father of four, Helnwein sees himself as an artist with a message. "A big part of contemporary art is not connected to anything," he said. "It's important for certain artists to respond to what's going on in present time." Curator Robert Flynn Johnson believes it is appropriate to display art with a moral message. "Museums shouldn't be like Rip Van Winkle, in a state of catatonic sleep," he says. "They should take on issues. Otherwise they will be seen just as a low-grade entertainment vehicle. We're not out to shock -- we're out to make people think." Johnson places Helnwein in the tradition of such contemporary activist artists as filmmakers Michael Moore ("Fahrenheit 9/11") and Errol Morris ("The Fog of War"), painter Gerhard Richter and painter Sue Coe, whose "deadmeat prints" include images of animal slaughter. Museum officials have posted notices in the museum lobby and outside the gallery to warn people that viewer discretion is advised. Officials at the Legion hope the exhibit will reach an audience that more typically comes to blockbuster shows on classical Egypt or the Old Masters. "If I do a show like this one that upsets the docents,"Johnson says, "I know that I've got a good show."

An artist with conscience, a fearless man with a penchant for profoundly bizarre and complex, meaningful images, Gottfried Helnwein is making a grand re-entry to San Francisco. His work was exhibited here four years ago when his freaky mixed-media portrait of Mickey Mouse - "Mouse I" - was part of the SF Museum of Modern Art's "The Darker Side of Playland - Childhood Imagery." The paintings are extraordinary, grotesque, powerful, "difficult" and challenging, according to Parker and the curator of the Legion exhibit, Robert Flynn Johnson. They are all that, and more. A simple description of the works, without context, would only indicate a freak show: a photo-like painting of Hitler with two very Aryan-looking children, an actual bar of soap encased under them; a group of uniformed Nazis gazing adoringly on a contemporary Mother and Child (Helnwein explaining that the people in the photograph that was the basis for the painting were actually surrounding Hitler); images of normal children mixed with misshapen, ill, tortured youngsters. "Why would people cause so much pain to others?" Helnwein asks, and he shows the pain, unflinchingly, but not to titillate the demented or to horrify the ignorant. "The Child" - located in a part of the Legion next to a permanent exhibit of Renaissance Mother and Child images by Pontormo, Tintoretto, Raphael, and others - has far more to offer than politics, morality, controversy and horror. Although there is no doubt that primarily Helnwein is "the artist as provocateur," he is also an artist in the sense of creating unique and lasting images.

Für das 8.Internationale Schumann-Fest in Düsseldorf brachte man nun ein kongeniales Team zusammen, um eine komplette szenische Umsetzung in der altehrwürdigen Tonhalle zu realisieren. Gregor Seyffert – mit Preisen geradezu überschüttete Tanzikone – hat zusammen mit Gottfried Helnwein – international geachteter Künstler und Bühnenbildner – ein im wesentlichen tänzerisches, hochintelligentes Konzept entworfen, welches alle Mittel moderner, multimedialer Bühnengestaltung beinhaltet; dem Besucher gehen förmlich die Augen über. Vor lauter medialer Aktivität könnte man fast die traumhaft schöne Musik und den Gesang vergessen. Frenetischer, nicht enden-wollender Beifall, eines begeisterten Düsseldorfer Publikums, für einen Abend, den keiner so schnell vergessen wird. Lebendigstes Musiktheater, welches der sich zur Zeit im Tiefschlaf befindenden Deutschen Oper am Rhein nicht nur konkurrenzlos den Ruhm abgräbt, sondern zeigt, daß Düsseldorf durchaus Weltklasse bieten kann. Warum nicht öfter ?

Director, Choreographer: Gregor Seyffert & Compagnie Berlin Conductor: John Fiore Sopran: Jörg Waschinski Düsseldorfer Symphoniker Chor des Städtischen Musikvereins Düsseldorf

Andy Warhol sieht furchtbar aus. Blaß, übernächtigt und jedenfalls nicht in Bestform. William S. Burroughs posiert pikanterweise mit einem Revolver, und Michael Jacksons Gesicht erscheint als das, was es ist: perfekte Fassade. Kaum eines der von Gottfried Helnwein aufgenommenen Schwarzweißfotos berühmter Persönlichkeiten - von Lou Reed über die beiden wunderbaren Aufnahmen des alten Charles Bukowski bis zur schon beinahe aufdringlich nett in die Kamera blickenden Leni Riefenstahl - möchte man im Ernst als schmeichelhaft bezeichnen. Gerade das aber ist es, was seine in den achtziger Jahren begonnene Porträtserie "Faces" auszeichnet: Helnweins Bilder, die derzeit im Neuen Kunstverein Aschaffenburg zu sehen sind, erzählen vermutlich mehr von den Menschen, als ihnen lieb ist.

The Times: "...these photo-paintings appear even more real than a photograph: they are hyper-real, super-saturated depictions of the world that surrounds us, as we would like to see it. Helnwein’s landscapes offer us the world as we see it in our mind’s eye, our memories. What is certain is that with these works Helnwein has raised the bar for artists to come with art that is groundbreaking in terms of scale, skill and vision. Painted mountains, fields and sky can never be the same again."

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Helnwein at Modernism Gallery San Francisco Booth A25 Gala Preview Wednesday February 18.

Alle Beteiligten gingen mit Akribie an die Arbeit. Sie verbanden, unter der Leitung von GMD John Fiore, die wunderbare Musik Robert Schumanns mit einer von Gregor Seyffert und Gottfried Helnwein großartigen szenischen Umsetzung des Textes von Thomas Moore. In fünf Aufführungen fanden sich mehr als 6.000 begeisterte Zuhörer und Zuschauer in der Tonhalle ein. Den Beifall des Publikums konnte man an jedem Abend „frenetisch“ nennen.

30 - 40% of all landmine victims are children under 15. . Los Angeles, Wednesday, December 3, 2003 His excellency Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General attended a Roots of peace (RoP) luncheon hosted by Diane Disney Miller in the Founders Room of the newly opened Walt Disney Concert Hall to adress the issue of landmines.

Austro-Präsenz: Nur wenige gute Freunde. Nachdem Arnie einen "Politiker-Überfall" des offiziellen Österreich verhindert hatte, schart er nur wenige österreichische Freunde um sich: den väterlichen Freund Alfred Gerstl etwa, 80, der den 17-jährigen Arnold zum Bodybuilding ermutigt hatte, - Kultmaler Gottfried Helnwein und Exslalomläufer Klaus Heidegger. Das offizielle Österreich vertrat Generalkonsul Peter Launsky-Tiefenthal, eingeklemmt in eine Kollegenschar aus Korea, Mexiko, China und Chile.

Gregor Seyffert is without a doubt one of the most interesting and expressive dancers of his generation.

On Sunday, November 9, at 7:00 p.m. the Museum of Tolerance commemorated the 65th anniversary of the infamous 1938 Nazi “Night of Broken Glass” (Kristallnacht) pogrom. The Wiesenthal Center's observance of the 65th anniversary of "Kristallnacht" was highlighted by the presentation of the work of Gottfried Helnwein and the screening of "Ninth November Night," a documentary about the artist's commitment to remind the world of the Holocaust.

In fact, his work is insistently open-ended. Like Goya's Disasters of War, his art queries time and again, "How can this have happened?" Sometimes viewers reply, assaulting pictures of innocent children, worshipping those of a murderous dictator. Yet such reactions can only bring us to inquire again, louder and with greater urgency, "How can this have happened?" At last we recognize that Helnwein asks questions not in order to solicit answers - hate has no reason - but rather in order that we might begin to pose our own.

On Sunday, November 9, at 7:00 p.m. the Museum of Tolerance commemorates the 65th anniversary of the infamous 1938 Nazi “Night of Broken Glass” (Kristallnacht) program which targeted 1,000 synagogues in Germany and Austria and marked the beginning of the end of European Jewry. The commemoration will be highlighted by the screening of a documentary by renowned Austrian artist, Gottfried Helnwein, 9th November Night, who has committed himself and his art to reminding the world of the Holocaust. The documentary is based upon his 1988 exhibit of seventeen children’s portraits that were displayed in commemoration of Kristallnacht in Cologne, Germany. Just days into the exhibit, these portraits were vandalized.. “The fury with which the neo-nazis reacted to these portraits is understandable inasmuch as it is the very same fury with which they have for years been fighting against The Diary of Anne Frank,” said famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. “The murder of children rouses abhorrence and conflict in every human, whether they are motivated by ideology or insanity. The urge to destroy has survived; the portraits bear witness to its rage.”

* Gottfried Helnwein, artist, born in Vienna, 1948 * Theodor Herzl "founder" of Israel, lived most of his life in Austria * Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany from 1933-1945, born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn

"Well, the world is a haunted house, and Helnwein at times is our tour guide through it. I think in anything that is really relevant and emotional art, there is some kind of a mirror that people experience. I don't think that you can recognize a feeling from something that you look at unless it's part of yourself, and so when someone is willing to take on the sadness, the irony, the ugliness and the beauty in the kind of way that Gottfried Helnwein does. Not all of Gottfried's work is on a canvas. A lot of it is the way he's approached life. And it doesn't take someone knowing him to know that. You take one look at the paintings and you say "this guy has been around." You can't sit in a closet - and create this. This level of work is earned." Sean Penn

exhibition-catalogue

Installation "Modern Sleep", 2003, digital print on vinyl, 20 by 60 feet in front of the Barker Hangar at the Los Angeles Art Show 2003, 3021 Airport Avenue at Santa Monica Airport.

Helnwein’s 20-by-60 foot outdoor installation “Modern Sleep 2003”, as well as photographs from his collaboration with Marilyn Manson, are included in the show, which opens with this evening’s gala and is open to the general public Friday through Sunday at Santa Monica Airport’s Barker Hangar. “Modern Sleep 2003” (digital print) is the latest in a series dating back to the 1980s and reflects Helnwein’s use of children in questioning the human condition. It includes two images of a girl. In one, her skin is pale white, and she is dressed in black. In the other, she is black, dressed in white. In both images, her expression is death-like. “They have open eyes, so modern sleep doesn’t mean they are just sleeping,” says Helnwein. “It might mean something else.”

Arnold war schon sehr früh mit Andy Warhol befreundet, zu einem Zeitpunkt wo beide noch unbekannt waren. Aber er hatte sofort Gefallen an dem blassen, schmächtigen, weissblonden Sonderling gefunden, der oft stundenlang in Trainingshallen und Umkleidräumen verbrachte und fasziniert die verschwitzten Kolosse bei ihren diversen Tätigkeiten betrachtete. Die Inspiration war offensichtlich gegenseitig, denn Arnold beschloss eines Tages, sein Bodybuilding zur Kunst zu erklären. Er wandte sich also an den Chief-Curator des angesehenen Whitney-Museums in New York und überzeugte ihn davon, dass Bodybuilding eigentlich Bildhauerei im klassischen Sinn sei, nur mit dem eigenen Körper als dem zu bearbeitenden Material. Er hat dann mit zwei anderen Kollegen tatsächlich vor staunenden Kunstfreunden, Kuratoren und Trustees des Museums eine Performance inszeniert, die die illustre Runde lange nicht vergessen sollte.

One-man show

Helnwein: "I think art always reflects the society and the time the artist lives in; it always tells you something about the condition of the culture. This is the age of materialism and profit, accompanied by its favorite all-eating pet – the entertainment industry. Therefore in order not to sink into oblivion, in a desperate struggle to be heard and seen, many artists and curators try to compete with this multi-media-entertainment-Godzilla, trying to be just as loud and cheap and stupid. That’s why 70% to 80% of all the contemporary art in our museums is crap. It’s true though that each time has its own aesthetic values and if you want to reach the people of today you have to develop an artistic language that they can understand. And that’s what I try to do – my audience is the great love-affair of my life. I am obsessed with my public, and all I want to do with my art is touch them and move them and to hold them tight – and sometimes I want to kick their ass. That is all I care about. But I also listen to them and take them and their responses serious, because they and other artists are the only ones that ever taught me anything."

Putting Holes into Happiness, Kneel down humble men and become the height of our children. Let your heart crawl into your knee and realize that all knowledge lives through imagination. This is the nursery business, always get a photocopy. Our cultures may continue to disintegrate but we just rebuild with abusement parks, filming the process and replaying it as situation comedy. We wear ribbons, hold hands, celebrate and concentrate on camps that train our kindergartens to shout out "star-spangled" banter. We will medicate the lunacy of "degenerate" art with heavy doses of old-fashioned (original recipe) family virtues. "Let's make sure all of these offensive forms of entertainment are shown publicly, and burned immediately as a warning to us all!"

"Meine Arbeit hat immer polarisiert. Ich habe immer Leute gehabt, die begeistert und fasziniert waren und ich habe immer Leute gehabt, die mich gehasst haben. Als ich noch in Wien war und ein Kritiker, der ein Leben lang eine Menge schlechter Bilder ohne Probleme ausgehalten hat, bei mir aber wirklich ausgerastet ist, Schaum vor dem Mund hatte, und fast einen Herzinfarkt gekriegt hat, dachte ich mir: Siehst du, irgendeine Intensität muss dein Werk haben. Bei meiner ersten Ausstellung im Wiener Künstlerhaus sind meine Bilder sogar mit Klebern überpickt worden auf denen “Entartete Kunst” stand.

An evening of top DJs spinning and bands rocking curated by James Healy. Helnwein-exhibition new works. (9 -10pm). Studio Helnwein.

Wenn Sie einem Blinden Ihre Bilder beschreiben müssten – dann wie? O mein Gott. Mit so einer Frage fangen wir an? Keine Ahnung, was ich da sagen würde. Die Frage stellt sich doch nie. Ich würde überhaupt niemandem meine Bilder erklären, weder einem Blinden noch einem Sehendem.

LOS ANGELES - Lou Reed took a walk on the wild side, down to Hollywood's RockWalk, where he placed his handprints and signature outside the Guitar Center music store on Sunset Boulevard.

"This album is about expression. The imagination and personality of the individual cannot be trapped by small minds or defined by any one person. The genious of arts finds sanctuary among children and madmen to survive. That is who we are." Marilyn Manson has collaborated with Gottfried helnwein for the album's artwork which is part of a greater series that will be published in a book and exhibited in museums across the world.

Marilyn Manson takes his inspiration from the glamour of 1930s Hollywood, the grotesque of Vaudeville to the height of cabaret decadence and so-called "degenerate" art in Weimar Berlin before its deconstruction.

SPIEGEL: Helnwein gilt wie Sie als Provokateur des Kulturbetriebes - haben sich da zwei verwandte Seelen getroffen? Manson: Ein Künstler, der nicht provoziert, wird unsichtbar. Kunst die keine starken Reaktionen auslöst, hat keinen Wert. Helnwein hat das verinnerlicht und entspricht damit genau dem Kern meiner Musik. Unsere Zusammenarbeit erschöpft sich nicht darin, dass ein Künstler einem Musiker ein Cover für sein Album malt. Wir schaffen zusammen Kunst, die unseren Gemütszustand wiedergibt. SPIEGEL: Helnwein sagt, Sie seien ähnlich einsam wie er. Manson: Ganz bestimmt. Es ist übrigens nicht nur schön, sondern auch befremdlich, jemanden zu finden, der tatsächlich das Gleiche liebt wie man selbst. Ich bin gewohnt für meine Ideen verurteilt zu werden - und plötzlich ist da jemand, der mich auf Anhieb versteht. Ich war nie ein geselliger Mensch. Das ist einer der Gründe, warum Leute wie ich Entertainer werden - weil sie anders nicht kommunizieren können.

"High above Marlene Dietrich Blvd. in the city of Berlin, the sun smoldered below the concrete gutter sky like a cigarette burn in a stained bedsheet. We set forth to the Dome of Berlin at dusk and I felt like I was in my own painting, "The Death of Art." Helnwein and I created a living installation with two disabled nude women as families stopped their picnics to stare. Of course we documented this for future viewing. But it didn't begin there... "Determined, I headed for the birthplace of Expressionism, humming "The Alabama Song," by Kurt Weill. It was time for The Grotesk Burlesk and dozens of mice scurried from the Kinderfeld. Their political organs had to be removed and we set them in formation, creating a metaphorical "question mark." Marilyn Manson

"The good news for Manson's fans and his accountants alike is 'The Golden Age of Grotesque' may well be his best album yet." [posted 4/25/2003 U.S.A.] Manson reveals Album Cover Artwork! posted: 2003-04-04

The Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein is well aware of the discomfort the public feels when confronted with images of children not represented as innocents but to whom a powerful sexual identity (and an awareness) is designated. In his work, and especially his paper drawings, he has created some of the most powerful and disturbing representations of abused childhood in history of art. We are not talking about the form of abuse commonly described in the penal code. By altering or removing the inbred pulsation that spurs us to stubbornly refuse or deny what we do not recognise, the manipulations and interferences (The Intrusion) adults perform on the social body of childhood are denounced.

D'autres photos sont visibles sur le site www.helnwein.com.

If you are already familiar with Gottfried Helnwein then you proably knew more than I do about art, and I apologize on behalf of the commercially saturated masses. Helnwein is a ridiculously talented artist. That is basically all you need to know. Anything you could imagine art doing for you, or to you, any feeling it might instill in you or emotion it might remove from you, he captures, then cripples, reformats, and pastes into the cleft pallet of a 20-foot-tall gray-scale rendition of a deformed fetus soaking in formaldehyde. The essence of realism and ability that every art major ever clamored to grasp, he manages to expel onto canvas with apparent ease. He produces paintings, and photographs that you can't help but wish you could recreate with the same vision, depth, and intrigue. His art is without gimmick and his persona is without persona. Helnwein is simply someone who enjoys creating, and has been doing a pretty damn good job at it for 35 years.

"Kleines Helnwein" is a play written and directedby the Argentinian poet Rodrigo M. Malmsten. Inspired and based on the early paintings of Gottfried Helnwein First performance: Teatro San Martin, Buenos Aires, 2000 . Autor: Rodrigo M. Malmsten Actuan: Martín Von Tumpling, Belén Blanco Iluminación: Alejandro Le Roux Música: Mariano Durand, Marcelo Vignolo Producción: Julieta Almada Dirección: Rodrigo M. Malmsten Esta obra formó parte del evento: III Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires

We have seen something of the 'look' created via Manson's collaboration with artist Gottfried Helnwein - While the Album remains a sealed box in musical terms, Manson will wax lyrical about the inspirations and influences that helped shape it. There are the people - as well as Calloway, he nods to Oscar Wilde and the loose collective of radical artists and agents provocateurs - collaborator Helnwein among them - who were dubbed the Viennese Actionists. " The Grotesque Burlesque takes what we've done in the past and brings it to a completely different level. This is making everyone a part of your creation. It's realising that art is more than music, more than people listen to it, more than people who play it - it is the combination of all that. Gottfried Helnwein is someone who knows how to artfully provoke. He would take some of his creations and he'd bring them out into the streets. It became an instance where people wouldn't know what was the show and what wasn't the show. That's such a beautiful thing. It's like being in the playground - you're not really sure who's on what team, or what the real objective is.

1987 - Helnwein-Performance at tank-camp Kopal of the Austrian Army

We have INDEED just finished mixing the final song for the album and have scheduled the GROTESK BURLESK all across the world. The artwork and much more of my collaboration with Gottfried Helnwein is also complete. The details of our AKTION and the sounds that accompany it will all be revealed quite soon.

William Friedkin - the director of The Exorcist, perhaps the most famous horror film of all time, and The French Connection, one of the best films of the 1970s - visited the studio of Gottfried Helnwein.

Poems and novels, films and photographs, paintings and performances, monuments and memorials, even comics are the cultural forms that engage us with catastrophic and traumatic history. Through these eyes we have come to know events which defy the possibility of representation. We have come to bear witness to history.