"His is a voice of tolerance, empathy, and personal freedom..."

"Salvador Dali's "Hitler Masturbating" is a masterpiece of satire, or so says my inner Beavis, anyhow. Gottfried Helnwein's painting Epiphany I is another excellent example, reminding us that not only was Hitler once a baby, but also that we can recognize him without his mustache. "

"The disturbing thing about Helnwein’s work is its ability to involve the viewer in the themes, strangely brought about by their detached presentation. It is a great marvel that an exhibition of such pristine images will leave you feeling dirty inside."

"Wir haben im Laufe der Zeit die wildesten Skandale dieses Landes penibel beschrieben, keiner dieser Berichte löst auch nur annähernd so eine Reaktion (wie Helnweins Titelbilder) aus. Es ist interessant zu registrieren, dass ein Bilder stärker provoziert als ein Text, dass Fiktion heftigere Reaktionen auslöst als ein Tatsachenbericht. Der Grund dafür dürfte darin liegen, dass die Fantasie stärker angeregt und im Unterbewusstsein Schlummerndes angesprochen wird. Hier liegt noch ein weites Betätigungsfeld für Kummunikations-theoretiker.
Wenn ich heute diese Herausgeber-Briefe lese, so überfällt mich Nostalgie. Über den Talenteschuppen profil und darüber, dass wir uns, obwohl es uns selbst nicht ganz leichtgefallen ist, mit Künstlern wie Helnwein oder Manfred Deix eingelassen haben. Ihre Power und die Aufbruchsstimmung rund ums profil haben einige Grenzen in diesem Land gesprengt."

"Gottfried Helnwein’s "American Prayer" (2000) has taken up residency in my mind. I began to discover a semiotic richness in this painting worthy of what W.J.T. Mitchell has called a "metapicture" - a "picture that [is] used to show what a picture is". Mitchell situates the concept of metapicture in "'iconology', the study of the general field of images and their relation to discourse," thereby cutting across Greenbergian self-reflexivity into an expanded context that includes popular culture as well as contemporary art. In this wider cultural field, a metapicture does more than reflect on the nature of the picture itself and calls into question "the self-understanding of the observer". I will argue that "American Prayer" derives its theoretical relevance partly from its concealed hybridity, from the interplay between technological media and painting. In this work, the substitution of one medium by another reinforces the meaning that can be created from the iconographic substitution of the child by Pinocchio, and the replacement of the deity by Donald. In the end, Donald’s sideways glance at us indicates that this picture is really about us, the observers; it questions our own place in a cultural web of illusionism spun from the abiding human desire to overcome death."

"Helnwein verbirgt eine mögliche seelische Aufgewühltheit oder Traumatisierung seiner Bildmodelle, die beispielsweise durch die schwarzen, faschistoid und fetischisiert zugleich wirkenden Uniformteile nahe gelegt werden könnte, hinter dem gesetzten Ausdruck seiner Kindergesichter. Wie Laokoon schreien diese wie aus Wachs gemeißelten, „schönen“ Kinder nicht mehr. Sie ertragen etwas, das nicht benannt wird und doch sichtbar wird. Sie kommunizieren in ihrer Intimität eine unauslotbare Abgründigkeit. Die Irritation des Betrachters entsteht daraus, diesem Geheimnis nicht auf die Spur kommen zu können. Die Wunde soll wach gehalten werden, und keiner soll sie heilen dürfen. "

"To me Helnwein is the ultimate humanistic artist: A conceptualist embracing the image. A virtuoso and a visionary with one eye behind the veil of the world, the other reflecting endless horror, beauty, loss, humour and melancholy - all with a steady hand. The position is supreme, the means are penetrating and the message as deep as it gets. To me the strange silent directness in Helnweins work is unrivaled, no other artist today tells the dim story of the world in a more disturbing and moving way. His work, views and perspectives are completely congruent and appeals to me in a very direct and personal way."

"Im Kampf gegen Reglementierungen und Zwänge, gegen Vergessen und Resignation weist Helnwein vornehmlich durch die Darstellung des Antlitzes des gezeichneten - oft schreienden - Menschen einen Weg, der Aufschrecken und Überprüfung zur Folge haben könnte. Dieser Zielsetzung unterwirft er die verschiedensten Mittel und arbeitet mit Serienphotos ebenso wie mit der endlosen Reproduktion der Offsetdrucks, mit Aktionen wie mit an die Grenzen des Erträglichen gehenden veristischen Bildern."

"Das ist Malerei für die Ewigkeit."

"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. "

"Helnwein is one of the greatest conceptual artists of the past hundred years"

"The portraits of Hendrix, Joplin, and Lennon are particulary stirring because their ghostlike treatment translates as a poetic and humble tribute to major creative forces whose lives were tragically cut short. As exemplified by the paintings of Helnwein, the purpose of a contemporary portrait may extend well beyond biographical signification to stimulating reflection upon larger issues of social or political consequence"

"People are much more content with watching the "real world" and reality television, than living their own lives, or watching something that comes from imagination. Imagination is a necessity, and I don't think it's sort of bad. I can dream up some images like I did with Helnwein, and they get censored, forbidden, - but I can take images which are far worse, that are on CNN and it's reality.
It's bad when imagination is censored by others, but when you censor it yourself, that's the worst. That's what's happening now with the dying breed of "artists," if I can use that word. People are afraid to say and do things because of how it will affect their career."

"Over the years Gottfried Helnwein has developed a unique style and today he is one of the greatest artists of the world."

"My favorit photographers are Nan Goldin, Anton Corbijn, Cindy Sherman. And Gottfried Helnwein. I love Gottfried Helnwein."

"We decided to choose the photographs of Helnwein for our cover artwork. We really like his attitude towards art and the way he presented us. It turned out that a picture of a band can be something different, - real art."

"I have a phenomenal admiration for Helnwein's work."

"An exhibition called Sensations caused a few upsets, first in London and then in New York. Central to the reaction was a large-scale portrait of a child-killer assembled from, if I remember correctly, the palm prints of children. So far, so bland. The shock element in art has been much talked about in the last five years but art that actually shocks has been thin on the ground during the same period.
Step forward then, Gottfried Helnwein.
By and large, if art is going to shock, it better have something shocking to say, and it's clear that Helnwein has found that. "

"The point of the images is that they put it up to you as a viewer. Given that, one potential line of criticism is that they are designed solely to be provocative, like Marcus Harvey's portrait of Myra Hindley. But the abiding strength of Helnwein's work is that provocation is a means rather than an end; it is - however uncomfortable - morally grounded,
if not necessarily in a way that will please all observers."

"Ich schätze seine unendliche zeichnerische Qualität, seinen enormen künstlerischen Witz. Vom malerischen Können muß man gar nicht reden, da ist er Weltklasse. Außerdem ist Helnwein ein überaus intelligenter und unruhiger Geist.
Seine Übermalungsexperimente sind hochklassig: Luxusbilder, Weltkunst.
Helnwein hat mich stark beeinflußt. Seine Federzeichnungen habe ich früher quasi unwillentlich nachgemacht. Er brachte mir Kühnheit und Wagemut bei. Ohne ihn gäbe es mich nicht. Er aber wäre nicht so, wie er jetzt ist, gäbe es mich nicht. Ein Leben ohne Helnwein kann ich mir nicht vorstellen, hoffentlich überlebt er mich."