Nun findet sich die Antwort auf die Frage nach dem Verbleib Gottfried Helnweins in massiven Schlagzeilen der “New York Times” und der “Los Angeles Times”. “Ein Aufstand der Farben, exzentrisch, anachronistisch, wundersam”, jubeln die Kalifornier. Die Kollegen von der Ostküste schreiben von “ausserirdischer Faszination und wilder Extravaganz”. Gottfried Helnwein hat an der von Placido Domingo geleiteten Oper von Los Angeles den “Rosenkavalier” von Richard Strauss ausgestattet. Maximilian Schell inszenierte, Kent Nagano dirigierte, und die Premiere zu Wochenbeginn geriet dem alten Fuchs Domingo zum Clou der amerikanischen Opernsaison. Schon in den Überschriften aber wird klargestellt, wer hier der Chef war: Gottfried Helnwein nämlich, geboren in Wien als Sohn eines Postbeamten, Konzeptkünstler, Fotograf, Filmer, unvergleichlich resistent gegen Katalogisierungen. ...

Gottfried Helnwein arouses creative tumult. - Los Angeles Times ...

CHEF D’ORCHESTRE – Kent Nagano
DIRECTEUR – Maximilian Schell
STYLISTE (scène, costume, masque) – Gottfried Helnwein ...

For the last several months, Downtown-based artist Gottfried Helnwein has switched back and forth between two realities. In his Arts District studio, he works on material to fill gallery and museum shows booked into 2008, all over the world.
Then he steps out into the sunlight, chats in several languages to several friends at a coffee shop on Traction Avenue, and walks to the Los Angeles Opera's costume shop on Alameda Street. Here, he oversees the costumes and sets for Der Rosenkavalier, which opens May 29 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. ...

Eins zeigt ein Mädchen mit frechem Gesicht und Blindenband um den Arm, das die Zunge herausstreckt. Erst habe ich gelächelt. Wer den Blick länger verharren lässt, sieht, dass dem Mädchen Blut zwischen den Beinen herunterläuft. Es wurde ganz offensichtlich missbraucht, ihm wurde Gewalt angetan.... Ja, Kinder sind verletzbar. Kindheit kann grausam sein, wenn Kinder ausgeliefert sind. Ich denke an sexuellen Missbrauch, eine unglaublich Form von Folter an Menschen, die lebenslang an dem Trauma leiden werden. Ich denke an Kindersoldaten in Togo, im Kongo, im Sudan. Zerstörte Leben, brutal geopfert für idiotische Machtkämpfe, in denen Zerstörung das oberste Gebot ist, in denen es keine Ziele mehr gibt. Ich denke an Kinder in Indien, die schuften schon mit fünf Jahren um ein paar Münzen zu verdienen, damit ihre Familie überleben kann. Ich denke an die 12-jährigen Judith Wischnajatskaja, die im Juli 1942 in ihrem letzten Brief schrieb: “Lieber Vater! Vor dem Tod nehme ich Abschied von Dir. Wir möchten so gerne leben, doch man lässt uns nicht, wir werden umkommen. Ich habe solche Angst vor diesem Tod, denn die kleinen Kinder werden lebendig in die Grube geworfen.“ ...

Catalogue cover: Gottfried Helnwein, Head of a Child 5, 1998 ...

"It was such a great pleasure showing all members of the cast Helnwein's incredible paintings. The girl who plays the "girl in the pit" was particularly impressed by the girl on the cover."
Nava Semel ...

Cover: Portrait by Gottfried Helnwein ...

Kevin Smith wept when he finally received the painting of Gottfried Helnwein
"I don't spend money on coke or whores." deadpans Kevin Smith. "And I am not a big car guy with a fleet of Ferraris or anything like that. But I can get behind an indulgence like this."
The indulgence in question is towering a nine-foot-tall canvas of Smith's daughter, Harley, which hangs in the entry of his Hollywood home.
Smith commissioned the portrait two years ago from Austrian Artist Gottfried Helnwein, who is best known for his dark, noir-style paintings.
Smith admittedly wept when he finally received the work, which has since become his pride and joy - a family heirloom that is a testament to his love for his child as well as being a serious work of art. ...

just yesterday i found out that a helnwein exhibition is in a museum near me.. about 10 mins away from here.. so i decided, as a huge helnwein freak, to go there...
69 pictures also photographs with manson, my favorite painting collection featuring the "angels sleeping" series were spreaded over 8 rooms. i was dressed up in floorlong black leathercoat, my new rock boots, a shirt with one of marilyn mansons paintings on it, lotsa spikes and make up shit.
it gives me so much.. helnwein is one of the best artist this world has at the moment.. and his kids are also cool..unbelievable how creative this whole fucking family is, a creativ chaotic household...hehe... ...

one-man show ...

The artist Gottfried Helnwein stands in front of large-sized painting which depicts a group of SS officers and a woman holding a child at the Wilhelm-Busch Museum in Hanover, Germany, Friday, 11 March 2005. The child is at the centre of the exhibition 'Beautiful Children' by the controversial artist Helnwein. 50 paintings, drawings and large-size photographs are exhibited from 13 March to 5 June 2005. Its the first time in years that Helnwein is again exhibiting in Germany. ...

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A highly satisfying survey of his work at the Legion of Honor museum titled "The Child" was dominated by images of children, as was a current exhibition of his more recent work at Modernism. ...

I recently saw your works in San Francisco at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. I took a friend and two teen age girls to see Marylin Manson on his Lest We Forget tour and then to your awesome exhibit the next day. To see your work in person is a must. It is chilling. The girls totally loved it and I have sucessfully corrupted yet three more unsuspecting innocents. One of the girls had never been to a museum, and has had a very hard and disturbing life. She is a budding artist herself, and she was awestruck. She identified with the art, it was her. I had to drag her from the museum.
Your art is changing healing people. Thank you. ...

Teaser trailer for the Marilyn Manson-intended, written and directed, feature-length film titled 'Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll'. Lily Cole, the main actress in Tim Burton's recent 'Alice in Wonderland', was originally cast as Manson's Alice for 'Phantasmagoria'. This teaser also features real-life twin sisters engaging in questionable acts and burlesque superstar Dita Von Teese. The figure in the medical mask is artist Gottfried Helnwein and the bird-face masked character and white gloved Lewis Carroll impresario, is Marilyn Manson. ...

TOP 10
The Gottfried Helnwein exhibition "The Child" at the Palace of the Legion of Honor (San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, July) was chosen as the most important show of a contemporary artist in 2004.
"In the first of two shows (the other at the Modernism Gallery in November), 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." ...

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
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California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. さてさて。旅行記めいたものを書きますと長くなり、途中でやめてしまうことが多いので、今回の旅行の中で印象に残った点を、つらつらと書いてみたいと思います。ゴットフリード・ヘルンウｪイン（Gottfried Helnwein）。この片仮名表記で合ってるかどうかわかりませんが。オーストリア人アーティストです。現在のコンテンポラリーでは、彼の作品展「The Child」が開催されていました。 ...

"...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. ...