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. ...


Ab 25. Mai ist anlässlich seines 65ers Gottfried Helnweins bisher größte Retrospektive im deutschsprachigen Raum geplant. "Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf seinem Frühwerk", so Schröder. Der Herbst wird von "Matisse und die Fauves" dominiert. 50 Leihgeber aus aller Welt steuern zu der großen Ausstellung bei, die rund 50 Werke von Henri Matisse sowie 100 Werke seiner Freunde zeigt. ...

Ab 25. Mai ist anlässlich seines 65ers Gottfried Helnweins bisher größte Retrospektive im deutschsprachigen Raum geplant. "Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf seinem Frühwerk", so Schröder. ...

Mendelsohn would not comment on any specifics, but we've heard that the painting already is complete, and that the well-known artist Gottfried Helnwein did it. Schwarzenegger is fond of Helnwein's work, and had his landscape painting of the Mojave Desert hanging in the governor's office. ...

Auxiliary Magazine: Many pieces of your work are intimate glimpses to fascist figures and groups. Is this a theme you still feel is relevant?
Helnwein: Mussolini once said: "Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power". Well, look around - does it look like there is a growing influence of bankers and big corporations on our governments and our lives? The new Fascists will not come as grim looking brutes in daemonic black uniforms and boots, they will wear slick suits and ties, and they will be smiling. ...

Helnwein hace que sus fotografías intervenidas por la pintura adquieran el sello de la crítica, de lo que revela una mirada inquisitiva ante la podredumbre de la violencia homicida. Tan es así que muchas de sus obras están manchadas de rojo, presencias infantiles que de pronto cobran la realidad del absurdo de la guerra y de sus prolongaciones actuales. ...

We see the painter and designer jousting with the lighting designer over what will prove to be Helnwein’s greatest coup de theater, a hypnotic final-act tableau of dozens of “dead children” suspended in black space. This time there can be little doubt that Helnwein’s judgment is correct; even on screen the effect is startling and eerily beautiful. ...

One of the great things about this documentary is that, while many out there might be familiar with Helnwein’s artwork or installations, they may not be familiar with where his ideas come from, or what it’s like when he works. In that way, the film is a wonderful look at a stunning contemporary artist. ...

The sets and costumes designed by the artist are indeed visually impressive, especially a haunting image of children suspended over the stage like ascending angels. ...

November 23, Quad Cinema
1:00, 4:15, 7:35
34 West 13th Street, New York, NY 10011
p: 212-255-2243
f: 212-255-2247 ...

It’s fascinating to watch Helnwein, unaccustomed to creative compromise, navigate the details and politics of a large-scale theatrical production, whether by rolling up his sleeves to daub cobalt onto a foam boulder so that it matches a craggy Caspar David Friedrich scene or micromanaging the stage makeup. In the end, Helnwein is pleased. “It brought all of the children I have painted before together,” he says of the opera’s fourth act. “I treat the staging like a canvas, but it’s three-dimensional and everything moves.” ...

When the powers behind the 2010 Tel Aviv production of Hanoch Levin's Holocaust opera The Child Dreams sought a designer, it seemed like plain sailing to bring on the Austrian provocateur Gottfried Helnwein, distinguished alumnus of what he calls "the same academy that rejected Adolf Hitler twice—which is, of course, the biggest mistake that any university has ever made in history." ...

“Es la función de un artista evocar el reconocimiento sorpresivo: mostrarle al espectador lo que sabe pero que no sabe que sabe. Gottfried Helnwein es un maestro del reconocimiento sorpresivo”. Así describió William Burroughs la obra de Helnwein (Viena, Austria, 1948), artista de la inocencia, lo siniestro y la ironía.
Fe, esperanza y caridad en el Museo Nacional de San Carlos y la Galería Hilario Galguera (además de un proyecto de arte público en el Monumento a la Revolución) es la exposición perfecta para entender esa capacidad que Burroughs elogió. Recorriéndola, uno siente una opresión en las entrañas, una forma de angustia. De eso algo sabemos todos, es la angustia existencial que anida en lo hondo de cualquier persona. ...

Helnwein has produced an impressive body of work, largely informed by the horrors of the Holocaust. It was the themes and sensitivities of his oeuvre that inspired the Israeli Opera to commission Helnwein’s designs for an ambitious new production. Lisa Kirk Colburn documents the visual artist’s sometime dramatic collaborative process in Gottfried Helnwein and the Dreaming Child (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.
In a telling historical irony, Helnwein was accepted by the art academy that famously rejected Hitler. Coming of age at a time the Holocaust simply was not discussed in Austria, Helnwein discovered the truth on his own. The revelation profoundly influenced his work both as a student and a mature artist. Images of children in various states of vulnerability reappear over and over in his photo-realist paintings. Not surprisingly, Helnwein had a deep affinity for Hanoch Levin’s allegorical play, The Dreaming Child and its Helnweinesque title character. ...

...

12pm - SONG OF THE AURORA, opening at Galería Hilario Galguera
6pm - SANTOS INOCENTES, opening at the Monumento a la Revolución (Monument of the Revolution)
8pm - FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY, opening at the Museo Nacional de San Carlos ...

Galería Hilario Galguera is proud to present Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein’s exhibit The Song of the Aurora, opening on October 17th, 2012 at 12:00 hrs. ...

Para Gottfried Helnwein el arte tiene un sentido humano y altruista. Pero en la exposición llamada El canto de la aurora, que se presentará en la galería Hilario Galguera, no esperen encontrar escenas obvias. El artista vienés -conocido ampliamente por su trabajo con músicos como Rammstein y Marilyn Manson- mostrará 12 pinturas hiperrealistas, inspiradas por el espíritu de la Europa de la post guerra, donde vemos imágenes de niñas que muestran la inocencia de la infancia, pero de una manera sutil pero conmovedora también la violencia y la destrucción. Hablamos con Hilario Galguera sobre lo que propone Helnwein en esta exposición.
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A public installation of Helnwein's monumental photographic works at Plaza de la República, as well as a show of small formats in Paseo Cimentación, a gallery located in the Monumento a la Revolución foundations. This marks the start of a series of cultural activities entitled REvoluciónArte inside this iconic building. ...

“El arte puede ser un arma muy poderosa para criticar o resistir. La estética puede señalar algo, mostrarlo, llevar a las personas a confrontar y enfrentar cosas, puede acusar y por eso el arte puede ser muy poderoso”, asevera Gottfried Helnwein, artista de origen austriaco, quien a partir del 17 de octubre exhibirá su obra en tres espacios de la ciudad de México: el Museo Nacional de San Carlos, donde se presentará una retrospectiva; en la Galería Hilario Galguera, con trabajos recientes, y el Monumento a la Revolución con una instalación realizada ex profeso para la niñez y sociedad mexicanas. ...