catalogue
essay by Wolfgang Bauer ...

Historian Peter Selz has compared Gottfried Helnwein's tortured, screaming, and bandaged self-portraits to Messerschmidt's sculptural self-portraits,
but the artist has said, " The reason why I took up the subject of self-portraits and why I have put myself on stage was to function as a kind of representative.
There is nothing autobiographical, no therapy, and it says nothing about me personally.
.... I am always available as a model." ...

Old photographic techniques are currently inspiring artists again while others are experimenting with new techniques:
amongst the latter are William Wegman, Gottfried Helnwein, Toto Frima, Bernhard Faucon, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff, Anke Erlenhoff and Candida Höfer. ...

Helnweins Thema ist der malträtierte, unterdrückte Mensch, am beeindruckendsten in einer Serie von mißhandelten und verstümmelten Kinderköpfen (1969). Dieses Thema inszeniert er auch in Fotoserien und Installationen sowie Performances ("Blut für Helnwein", 1972). Nach 1985 kombiniert er großformatige Fotos mit abstrakt-gestischer Malerei ("Der Beweis", 1986). In Helnweins Kunstauffassung offenbart sich ein obsessiver Realismus, der die verdrängte, tabuisierte »Nachtseite« der menschlichen Zivilisation in packenden Metaphern veranschaulicht. ...

Helnweins künstlerische Praxis beruht auf der Erkenntnis der grundsätzlich unterschiedlichen Seinsformen von Fotografie und Malerei. Einerseits schöpft er als einer der konsequentesten Multimedia-Künstler überhaupt die spezifischen Möglichkeiten der jeweils verwendeten Medien bis zu den Grenzen ihrer Horizonte aus -- neben Fotografie und Malerei die Zeichnung und die Performance -, spiegelt sie andererseits, aber auch gewissermassen ineinander, so dass sie sich gegenseitig erhellen und ihre Wirkung steigern. ...

Gottfried Helnwein, "Mickey", oil and acrylic on canvas,210cm x 310cm ...

catalogue ...

"Child's Head", 1991, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 650x403.5
Pg. 278
The early stages of this monumental head can be seen in Helnwein's widely varied portrayals from the seventies of suffering children, but above all in the Cologne installation of anonymous children's portraits "9th November Night" from 1988.
The human face, in particular the child's face, is of great fascination for Helnwein and consequently accounts for one of his central pictorial subjects. The monumental face of a little girl which is introduced here is, as it were, representative of all children. In our adult society oriented towards profit and success, children can almost be described as a fringe group, their interests indeed being observed in a comparatively modest fashion. Against this background, this monumentalizing of the face in connection with the hyperrealistic style of painting is to be understood as an oppressive irritation of our customary experience of perception.
Originally the child's head was shown in a Minorite church in Krems, Stein; in fact it was placed at the focal point of a huge early Gothic room which lent the picture a positively sacral tone. ...

Die Ausstellung präsentiert vierzig ausgewählte Statements großer Photographen des 20.Jahrhunderts:
von Cartier-Bresson, Lebeck, Chargesheimer bis zu Klauke und Helnwein wird jeweils eine bedeutende künstlerische Position gezeigt.
Die Ausstellung konzentriert sich nicht auf das Einzelbild, sondern komponiert ganze Werkgruppen zu großformatigen Tableaus und unterstreicht so den "journalistischen Aspekt" in der Photographie dieses Jahrhunderts.
Einen Abschluß findet dieser Jahrhundertrückblick in drei künstlerischen Positionen, die in sehr persönlicher Weise Stellung zur gesellschaftlichen Situation beziehen:
Jürgen Klaukes "Self Performance" (1972/73), Philip Pococks Berliner Szenen (1982)
sowie Gottfried Helnweins "Poems" (1998). ...

exhibition-catalogue
Albertina, Wien - 10. 10. 2000 - 18. 10. 2000
Galerie Suppan, Wien - 23.10. - 25.11. 2000
...

The Book Bukowski in Pictures is the first pictorial biography of cult writer, Charles Bukowski. The writer's extraordinary private and public life is illustrated with hundreds of photographs, most published for the first time. Extracts from Bukowski's poetry and prose are sprinkled throughout, together with drawings, cartoons, manuscripts, rare broadsides and personal letters. It features powerful new portraits of Bukowski by leading photographers such as Gottfried Helnwein and Tony Lane, former art director of Rolling Stone, as well as work by R.Crumb. All photographs have detailed captions by biographer Howard Sounes who has also written a powerful introductory text with new revelations gleaned from Bukowski's recently declassified FBI file. The end result is a fascinating life in pictures that will be essential for all Bukowski fans. ...

February 1999 - on tour till 2001
started at the Ansel Adams Center for Photography,
San Francisco
catalogue: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York,
ISBN 0-8109-4358-1 ...

... Among others, Joel-Peter Witkin's repugnant, prosthetic-clad Dominatrice, from 1988, is here, as is Gottfried Helnwein's barbaric 1987 Self-Portrait, depicting his own torture with surgical tools. By exploring the simpler technique ...
(An American Century of Photography: From Dry-plate to Digital, Print, book review
by Fred Ritchin)
608 pages; 499 b&w and color illustrations;
Introductions by Barbara Hitchcock and Deborah Klochko Essay by Deborah Martin Kao Friends of Photography/Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York 120 pages; 90 color photographs; ...

...

Edited bei Angelika Taschen und Burkhard Riemenschneider
Text bei Gilles Neret ...

...Noch 1989 erregte ein Plakat Gottfried Helnweins, auf dem mit einem entblößten Unterleib für „Lulu" geworben wurde, die Stadt München... ...

"[Keith Richards]" (Helnwein, Gottfried) RICHARDS, KEITH—PHOTOGRAPHS ...

catalogue
Antico Monastero
di Santa Chiara

"E’ sicuramente importante dimostrare, per la prima volta nell’Europa Occidentale, la comune fede in un unico Signore risorto"
Mons. Michel Berger ...

...

The author wishes to express his admiration for the magnificent painting Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Gottfried Helnwein, in turn inspired by Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, and acknowledge its inspiration for this story. Hopefully, the beat goes on. ...