NEWSHelnwein

Bigger than Art is a feature documentary that delves into the profound themes of art through the perspectives of some of today's most renowned contemporary artists. Central to the film is a dialogue between acclaimed artist Gottfried Helnwein and actor Sean Penn, as they explore the origins of art, humanity's relationship with it throughout history, and its remarkable capacity to transcend boundaries.

Aufregung um das den Altarraum verhüllende "Turiner Leichentuch" des Weltstars im Stephansdom, ein Projekt von Dompfarrer Toni Faber. Die beiden anderen Installationen des Künstlers werden nach dem Beschluss des Rats der Bischöfe nicht aufgehängt. Der Dom sei ein Ort des Gebets und sollte gerade zu Ostern nicht polarisieren.

To celebrate the 75th birthday of Gottfried Helnwein, the ALBERTINA Museum is showing a large-scale exhibition of his output from the past three decades. The Vienna-born artist Gottfried Helnwein’s oeuvre is characterized by his interest in the themes of pain, injury, and violence. A central motif of his is the figure of the vulnerable and defenseless child as a proxy of sorts, one that embodies all psychological and societal anxieties.

In collaboration with the Vienna Insurance Group, Gottfried Helnwein transformed the Vienna Ringtower into an oversized call against violence. On a total of 3,000 m², Helnwein makes the experience of violence among women and children visible.

Regelmäßig zeichnet das Europäische Kulturforum Künstler aus, die in ihren Genres eine besondere Stellung einnehmen. In der Sparte bildende Kunst war das heuer Helnwein.

Due to the COVID-19 crisis the world premiere of PASSION could not take place at the PalmKlang Festival. In these challenging times we were inspired by a main message of PASSION: The hope for resurrection. Therefore we joined forces with other art forms and developed a new concept for the premiere; we exchanged the stage for a museum and the audience for a camera. On the 3rd and 4th of July 2020 we spent the night at the Albertina Museum in Vienna. Surrounded by and inspired by the art of Gottfried Helnwein, we brought PASSION to life. The result is this film, a resurrection of our artistic beliefs and hopes.

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.

The exhibition focuses on art from the second half of the 20th century, featuring both the stars and the broad diversity of art after 1945. Around 80 masterpieces serve to illustrate the multifaceted nature of postmodernism, ranging from Hyperrealism to abstraction and from color aesthetics to political themes, while also providing a clear impression of the complex parallel trends of the past few decades. Works by Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Gottfried Helnwein, Arnulf Rainer, Georg Baselitz, Alex Katz and Maria Lassnig and others take centre-stage.

Helnwein's counterpart is situated opposite to Gustav Klimt, between Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein.

Ein Abdruck in der Berliner Zeitung hatte meine Frau und mich angesprungen und veranlasst, es bei einem Besuch in Wien in der Albertina zu suchen. Das Bild erschütterte, faszinierte und lässt uns bis heute nicht los. Es ist so stark, dass es aus sich selbst wirkt...

Under the headline "The Helnweins will see you now", Nicholas Haramis writes: "They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky. They're altogether ooky. Meet the real-life Addams-Family"

FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY - Solo exhibition at the Museo Nacional de San Carlos SONG OF THE AURORA, Galería Hilario Galguera SANTOS INOCENTES, installation and exhibition at the Monumento a la Revolución

On Dec 28th Forbes Magazine published an article by Jonathon Keats under the heading: "The True Impct of Violence on Childhood? Why Every American Ought to See the Paintings of Gottfried Helnwein". "Two days after the Sandy Hook school massacre, a survival gear company called Black Dragon Tactical composed a new slogan to promote sales of armored backpack inserts. “Arm the teachers,” the company declared on Facebook. “In the meantime, bulletproof the kids... The question may be political, but the keenest response is to be found in a museum in Mexico City, the Museo Nacional de San Carlos, at a retrospective of paintings and photographs by the Austrian-American artist Gottfried Helnwein. Helnwein’s extraordinary work depicts the fragile innocence of children. Devoid of grown-up sentimentalism, his images can be overwhelming, especially those that show how that innocence falters in an adult world."

January 29 through April 24, 2011

In 1971/72 Gerhard Richter created an iconic set of paintings depicting 48 men that influenced Modernity, based on the black and white reproductions in encyclopaedias. Exactly 20 years later 1991/92, Gottfried Helnwein replied with the counterpart, also called "48 Portraits" depicting 48 women in monochromatic red.

One of the most important productions of the Israeli Opera's 25th anniversary season is the world premiere of the opera The Child Dreams, based on the most poetic and lyric play by the late Hanoch Levin, Israel's greatest playwright.

With Damien Hirst, David Wojnarowicz, Gilbert and George, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Joel Peter Witkin, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Matthew Barney, Gottfried Helnwein, Pierre et Gilles, Yasumasa Morimura

The Steiger Award honours personalities for directness, openness, humanitarianism and tolerance. Further prize winners this year were Sir Bob Geldof (music), Maximilian Schell (life’s work), former president of Germany Prof. Dr. Roman Herzog (tolerance), Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxemburg (charity), Veronica Ferres (film), Sir David Frost (media), former prime minister of Italy Romano Prodi and former president of Poland Aleksander Kwasinewski (Europe). Dr. Antje Vollmer, former speaker of parliament, gave the laudation for Gottfried Helnwein .

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about the art of Gottfried Helnwein.

"Das Verlies von Amstetten berührt auch etwas im Innersten der Österreicher, ihre dunkle Seite, die sich spiegelt in den Gedichten ihrer Autoren. Und in den Bildern von Gottfried Helnwein, wo Menschen zu sehen sind, denen Gabeln in die Augen gedrückt werden. Oder Mädchen, denen das Blut die Beine herunterläuft. Helnweins Bilder sind Albträume, sie handeln von Verliesen in den Köpfen...

Choreographisches Theater Johann Kresnik, Oper Bonn.

Together they inspect the hanging of Helnwein's Landscape "Death Valley" (2002 - 2006, oil and acrylic on canvas, 120 x 774cm, 48 x 296 inches) in the Governor's Council Room.

The show was seen by more than 600 000 people.

In Recognition of Significant Artistic Contributions to the Disney Duck Genre and the Carl Barks Legacy.

The Helnwein exhibition sets a museum visitor record. Stella Rollig, the director, states: "If anyone from Austrian Fine Art of the last fifty years could be called a star, then there is only one person who meets all the criteria: Gottfried Helnwein"

"Gottfried Helnwein's latest exhibition, "Face It", is the artist's first show in his native Austria since 1985. A retrospective of 40 works from the 1970s to the present, it is more shocking than the Royal Academy's infamous "Sensation" of 1997. Helnwein aims to disturb not with, say, an elephant-dung Madonna, as Chris Ofili did then, but with a far more controversial Virgin. Of all his paintings, the most disturbing is Epiphany (1996), for which he dips into our collective memory of Christianity's most famous birth. This Austrian Catholic Nativity scene has no magi bearing gifts. Madonna and child are encircled by five respectful Waffen SS officers palpably in awe of the idealised, kitsch-blonde Virgin. The Christ toddler, who stands on Mary's lap, stares defiantly out of the canvas. Helnwein's baby Jesus is Adolf Hitler."

Choreographer: Johann Kresnik

"Il était une fois Walt Disney" is an exhibition that examines Art in relation to Walt Disney. The sources of inspiration for the Disney studios and Disney Recycled by Contemporary Art. Curator Bruno Girveau states: "Pop Art made Mickey and Donald into icons, and artists continue to be inspired by Disney’s legacy today. This section shows some thirty works based on Disney characters, created by a diverse group of modern and contemporary artists that includes Gary Baseman, Christian Boltanski, Gottfried Helnwein, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. As French painter Robert Combas said in 1977, “Mickey is no longer Walt’s property, he belongs to us all.”

The film is shown on German, Austrian and Swiss Television, channel 3Sat

For the past twenty-four years the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy Foundation, in association with the UCLA Film and Television Archive, has presented a series of film programs featuring the outstanding documentaries of the previous year. The film, NINTH NOVEMBER NIGHT, was considered by the Academy’s Documentary Screening Committee to be one of the outstanding documentaries of 2004. It is our wish to include a screening of "Ninth November Night" in this prestigious series on the evening of Wednesday, November 30, 2005.

one man show

Gottfried Helnwein is best man and Hamish Bowles reports exclusively about this event in VOGUE, March 2006.

Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times writes: "Gottfried Helnwein's wondrous staging of "Der Rosenkavalier" is eccentric and anachronistic — yet utterly faithful to its spirit. The thing you should know about this "Rosenkavalier" is that it is terrific. Helnwein's vision of "Rosenkavalier" is monochromatic and a riot of color. It is updated but couldn't be more 18th century. And none of those opposites contradicts."

The Visions Of Lewis Carroll, consists of four short films, followed by a feature length film.

The film, NINTH NOVEMBER NIGHT by Henning Lohner, was considered by the Academy’s Documentary Screening Committee to be one of the outstanding documentaries of 2004.

At German Protestant Church Day ("Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag"), the annual convention of the German Protestant Church, Chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Bishop Dr. Margot Käßmann referes in her opening sermon to the images of suffering children in the art of Gottfried Helnwein.

"In einer fotografischen Inszenierung Gottfried Helnweins erhebt sich der Künstler, fäulnisschwarz und monumental wie das Mahnmal einer letzen Einsicht: 'So ist Verweiflung, diese Krankheit im Selbst, die Krankheit zum Tode. […]. Der Tod ist nicht das letzte der Krankheit, aber der Tod ist in einem fort das Letzte. Von dieser Krankheit erlöst zu werden durch den Tod ist eine Unmöglichkeit, denn die Krankheit und deren Qual und der Tod ist gerade, nicht sterben zu können.”

The show is seen by almost 130,000 visitors and the San Francisco Chronicle quotes it the most important exhibition of a contemporary artist in 2004. Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic, wrote: "Helnwein's large format, photo-realist images of children of various demeanors boldly probed the subconscious. Innocence, sexuality, victimization and haunting self-possession surge and flicker in Helnwein's unnerving work"

"The Times"(UK) comments on the show:"...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."

Although, Kiefer’s work differs considerably from Helnwein’s in his concern with the effect of German aggression on the national psyche and the complexities of German cultural heritage. But Kiefer and Helnwein’s work are both informed by the personal experience of growing up in a post-war German speaking country... William Burroughs said that the American revolution begins in books and music, and political operatives implement the changes after the fact. To this maybe we can add art. And Helnwein's art might have the capacity to instigate change by piercing the veil of political correctness to recapture the primitive gesture inherent in art."

The documentary. Children and the Holocaust in the art of Gottfried Helnwein. Director: Henning Lohner Commentators: Sean Penn, Maximilian Schell, Jason Lee Introductory text by Simon Wiesenthal Camera: Jason Lee, Darren Rydstrom, Bernd Reinhardt

Helnwein and Manson work on several artistic experimental projects. Some of the images from that co-productions are being used for Mansons new Album, videos and the stage.

Beginning of the friendship with Marilyn Manson.

Museum Kunst der Gegenwart, Collection Essl, Klosterneuburg/Vienna

He said in an interview: "Well, the world is a haunted house, and Helnwein at times is our tour guide through it. 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."


"The Los Angeles Times" writes about this event: "When Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein opened a show of his paintings recently, celebrities crowded his downtown studio. Leonardo DiCaprio rubbed Elbows with Marilyn Manson. Beck chatted with Kevin Smith. Mena Suvari stopped for a photo op, and Sean Penn lent his cool. "

One man show at the Butler House and Installation in the city of Kilkenny at the annual Arts Festival, with large digital prints of children's faces and monochromatic blue scenes at the facades of houses in the medieval town center "Ephiphany I", 8x12m (25x36 feet), on the wall of Kilkenny Castle.

Albertina, Vienna and the Museum of Fine Art, Budapest

Museum of Modern Art, Oostende, Belgium. Installation "Fall of the Angels", digital print, 7X10m.

Director: Jurgen Flimm, coductor: Ingo Metzmacher

Alicia Miller commented on Helnwein's work in Artweek: "...For children, not understanding what really to be afraid of, these dreams portend some pain and disturbance lurking into the landscape. Perhaps nothing in the exhibition exemplifies this better than Gottfried Helnwein's 'Mickey'. His portrait of Disney's favorite mouse occupies an entire wall of the gallery; rendered from an oblique angle, his jaunty, ingenuous visage looks somehow sneaky and suspicious. His broad smile, encasing a row of gleaming teeth, seems more a snarl or leer. This is Mickey as Mr. Hyde, his hidden other self now disturbingly revealed.

40 great photographers of the 20th century.

Premiere at the Theatro San Martin in Buenos Aires

County Museum of Lower 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."

Exit Art has organized this show: 24 artists, most of them novices to the scene, were picked by 13 artists. The international selectors included Damien Hirst, Sam Taylor-Wood, Nari Ward, Gottfried Helnwein, Ronald Jones, Cindy Sherman and Kiki Smith. Among what's notable are Iris Andraschek's creepy fish-tank concoctions, picked by Gottfried Helnwein...

The infamous "Tape-session".

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

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

Rammstein's album "Sehnsucht (album)" is released with six different covers by Gottfried Helnwein.

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)."

At first he lives in Dublin and in 1998 he acquires a castle in County Tipperary where lives and works since then.

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.

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.

"Epihany I" first exhibitied at Modernism Gallery San Francisco

directed by Hans Kresnik.

master pieces from the Ludwig Collection from antiquity to the present day.

HISTORY - Past, Present and Future page 33: "Scream"- ("Das Lied / The Song" watercolor, 1980) page 37: "Little Susie"- ("Lichtkind", photograph, grattage, 1972 )

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

Austrian Artists of the Schömer Collection, Vienna in the Kunstverein, Augsburg, Germany.

a series of dark monochrome paintings with the faces of Arthur Rimbaud, Jim Morrison, Malcolm X, Mishima, Mayakovski, Rosa Luxemburg, Ulrike Meinhof and others.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Schwarzenberg receives Helnwein in his office at the The Prague Castle, seat of the president of the Czech Republic and discusses Helnwein's work

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.

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)

He applies more and more layers of oil varnish to his realistic blue monochrome pictures till the subjects are almost indiscernible.

(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.

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"

Keith draws on Ali Helnwein's hand

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?"

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

Gottfried Helnwein, David Hockney, Clegg and Guttmann

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

The play is given an enthusiastic reception by audience and critics and is later awarded the Theatre Prize of Berlin

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

This was the first cultural debate of the German Green Party

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."

Helnwein plans an Installation in rememberence of "Kristallnacht" 50 years ago, in the city center of Cologne - between the Ludwig Museum and the Cathedral.

Performance at camp Kopal of the Austrian army, February, 1987. Helnwein uses tanks and real ammunition

"Death of Pinocchio" (Der Tod des Pinocchio), "God in Panic" (Gott in Panik), "Modern Sleep", "Burnt Angel" and others

"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).

Podium discussion "Violence, Sexuality, Antiquity" with Heiner Müller, Hans Neuenfels, Ernest Bornemann and Gottfried Helnwein.

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).

Catalogue with texts by Walter Koschatzky and Peter Gorsen

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).

Helnwein declines, leaves Vienna and moves with his family to Germany

The film is awarded the Adolf Grimme Prize and in the same year wins the Eduard Rhein Prize and the Golden Kader of the city of Vienna for outstanding camera work.

Group show

Gottfried and Renate Helnwein were amongst the few people that Marlene invited to her home in Paris, and stayed in close contact with until the end of her life

"Gottfried Helnwein: Called the 'Razor Blade Rembrandt' or 'the Boris Karloff of Art', Helnwein is the man most Austrians love to hate. He schocks people. His paintings are scenes from every-day life, highly realistic, but there's a sharp, morbid streak in many of them. Children with razors, faces under extreme stress or in fear or in pain. Intensly human, often savage, but always stunning. I found him to be a sensitive, warm human being..."

But the painting is already part of a collection in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.

The exhibition is seen by more than a hundred thousand people

- the Austrian art-collector and patron Hans Dichand finances a campaign with large bill- boards of Helnwein's artwork throughout Austria against the destruction of the last great riverside meadowland woods in Europe by the Austrian power-station company Donau- kraftwerke AG.

Helnwein demands no tests and no age-restrictions as pre-requisites for his students. He wants the freedom to accept anybody, including children. The college rejectes this demand as being against university regulations and Helnwein declines the offer

1982, auf ihrer zweiten US-Tour, mit Iron Maiden als Support Act, promoten die SCORPIONS als Headliner ihre bahnbrechende LP "Blackout", das Album mit dem spektakulären Helnwein-Cover. Die Single "No One Like You" und die "Blackout"- LP erreichen die Top Ten in den USA. Es gilt als das beste Hard Rock Album des Jahres und wird mit Platin ausgezeichnet.

The self-portrait as a screaming blinded man is used for this cover story and later for the cover of the Scorpions' LP "Blackout".

He further accuses Elvis' physician of murder and criticizes the education system, referring to the high number of student-suicides. Helnwein calls upon students to simply stay away from school. The director of Austrian Radio (ORF) is appalled and cancels the show

Begin of the friendship with Wolfgang Bauer

R. Höpfinger and E. Regnier hand out sweets and toys bearing Helnwein pictures of wounded children to passers-by in Zürich.

Spurred into action by an interview in the Austrian newspaper "Kurier" in which the country's top court psychiatrist, Dr Heinrich Gross, admits killing children at Vienna's "Am Spiegelgrund" Pediatric Unit during the war by poisoning their food, Helnwein paints "Life not Worth Living" - a watercolour of a little girl "asleep" on the table, her head in her plate. The painting gets published in Austrias leading newsmagazine Profil and sparkes a nationwide debate that finally leads to Gross' appearing before a Vienna court . The judge rules Gross is mentally unfit to be tried.