Helnwein gehört mittlerweile zu den international populärsten Malern der Gegenwart. Seine künstlerischen Ursprünge liegen allerdings in seiner österreichischen Heimat: Mit dem Magischen Realismus Hausners verbindet ihn die ins Surreale gehende Überzeichnung des Bildgegenstandes, mit Hermann Nitsch und dem Wiener Aktionismus der Hang zur Inszenierung von Blut, Gewalt und Perversion. ...

monograph,catalogue
text by Gottfried Helnwein.
with an interview of Carl Barks by Gottfried Helnwein on July 11, 1992, Oregon
texts by Roy Disney, Gottfried Helnwein, Carsten Laqua, Andreas Platthaus und Ulrich Schröder
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The exhibition was shown from 1994-1998 in the following museums:
Münchner Stadtmuseum, München.
Wilhelm Busch Museum, Hannover.
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Köln.
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg.
Landesmuseum Mainz, Rheinland Pfalz, Mainz.
Kunsthalle Schwaben, Baden Würthemberg.
Museum Zitadelle Spandau, Berlin.
Ludwig Museum, Schloss Oberhausen.
Städtische Galerie am Fischmarkt, Erfurt.
Städtische Galerie Ravenberger Park, Bielefeld.
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The show was seen by more than 400,000 people. ...

Anders als Courbet in seinem Atelier ist Beuys in seiner Werkstatt allein.
Kunst und Leben sind in seiner Figur tatsächlich eins geworden, und zwar auf eine stille, aber um so eindringlichere Art.
Ist es da verwunderlich, dass Arno Breker in einer photographischen Arbeit von Gottfried Helnwein Hammer und Meißel aus der Hand gelegt hat und uns resigniert das Bild von Joseph Beuys als unerreichbares Modell vorhält?
( Abb. 20 ) ...

Barks:
... I preferred to work with the duck - I could push Donald around, let him get into an accident, I could let him fall off a cliff, or whatever I wanted. It was lots of fun with Donald. With Mickey that would have been dangerous, because he always had to be loved and had to be victorious in all situations. With Donald I had a comedian who I could treat badly and who I could make fun of. ...

Nach 1945 trumpft die Kunst umfänglich erst wieder mit der 68er Bewegung schockierend auf. Etwa in der Pop-Art. Etwa mit den Bildtafeln eines Roy Lichtensteins. Seine Arbeiten, wie auch die anderer Pop-Artisten, tendieren indes zu einer Ästhetisierung des Schreckens. Zitatförmig nimmt Lichtenstein etwa Comic-Motive vom Krieg auf. Doch die Darstellung oszilliert zwischen Wohlgefallen an der Szenerie und Kritik an der Szenerie. Ähnlich ambivalent erscheinen die zahlreichen Drucke von Andy Warhol zum Thema "Kennedy-Mord".
Der wirkliche Schrei, Signum einer Vorkriegsepoche, taucht nicht mehr auf. Ausnahme von der Regel sind die Werke von Gottfried Helnwein. Sie zielen nochmals auf die Scham- und Peinlichkeitsschwelle. Oder sie machen aus dem täglichen Schrecken im Fernsehen ein formatfüllendes Standbild, ("Das Wunder I", 1980, "Das Lied I", 1981). ...

"I do not refer to the choice of objects, although I mean those too; above all, I refer to that expression of uniqueness, of the special quality of time that pictures can be given by artists who know what a record is. But that requires an interest in the things themselves and it is not enough to be interested in the lighting."
Bertold Brecht ...

"Rock music, films and comic strips are the art of the 20th century: basic artforms that make a powerful impact, with elemental potency and intensity. These are the very qualities I have tended to miss in most approved works of high art. In comparison, the latter are generally bloodless and boring, and have little connection with real life and people." When Gottfried Helnwein made this assessment of contemporary art in 1990, he had long since shown in his own art that he was way ahead of his times. Yet again. ...

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. ...

Looking at Gottfried Helnwein' portraits, we once again experience the shock of the new, of an unprecedented view of the person opposite. I have observed many people confronted with these portraits for the first time and again and again they would show surprise, intensity of experience and fascination. Helnwein's portraits can be seen as counterpoles to the technically sophisticated smoothnes of the portraits of Robert Mapplethorpe. ...

Gerhard Richter schuf in den Jahren 1971/72 in fotorealistischer Manier eine Serie von 48 Porträtbildern von Männern, die die Moderne beeinflussten. Zwanzig Jahre nach der Entstehung von Richters Werkgruppe antwortete der österreichische Maler Gottfried Helnwein 1991/92 mit einem Zyklus von 48 Porträtbildern weiblicher Persönlichkeiten. Als Gegenpol zum kühlen Grau der Serie Richters bediente Helnwein sich warmer Rottöne. 1994 erwarben die Sammler Peter und Irene Ludwig die Werkgruppe, die seitdem Teil der Sammlung des Museum Ludwig ist. ...

The auratic face of a child, six metres high, four metres wide, hanging in the triumphal arch of a medieval church, surrounded by dozens of canvases in the standard size of 200 by 140 cm that are mounted on the church's pillars and walls show heads and fantasy creatures which only on closer inspection may be easily recognized as children's drawings - once more Helnwein upsets traditional structures of perception in a number of ways, including the expectations that visitors have of a Helnwein exhibition. This is signalled already by the title "KINDSKOPF", which in addition to being a reference to the theme depicted (the head of a child) refers to the ironically serious self-representation of the artist (in German "Kindskopf" is a somewhat condescending colloquialism for an adult acting in childish ways), similar to Helnwein's earlier catalogue title "Subhuman" ("Untermensch") of 1988. ...

For the occasion of the fall of the Berlin-wall Gottfried Helnwein and Marlene Dietrich created the book "Some Facts about Myself"
text by Marlene Dietrich
conception by Gottfried Helnwein
photographs of Berlin by Gottfried Helnwein
design und layout by Neville Brody and Giles Dunn ...

They are completely apart from other human beings.
Their emotions, all their feelings,their reactions are opposed to so-called "normal" people's sentiments.
They are vulnerable and deeple sensitive people, due to their talents, their super-imagination, their knowledge of hidden influences of which we ordinary human beings are not.
They are not easy to live with - if you choose to live with them at all, if you have the luck to meet them at all.
Writers, composers, painters - also artists like directors, and actors fall into the same category.
They are to be handeled with kid-gloves, mentally and physically.
And their reactions go to extremes, compared to non-artistic human beings.
And I was lucky enough to meet and love and work for many, many artists,
I learned not without heartbreak and pain, to become a better, more intelligent, respectful and devoted person.
No tears were wasted in the process. My tears - not theirs!
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Marlene Dietrich ...

At nights my room was plunged into a deep, red light - my toys, the furniture, my bed, my hands - everything had the same color and seemed to be made of the same soft material. As though the natural laws were suddenly suspended, all matter seemed to glow from the inside out. The explanation for this red magic was the large illuminated star of the Red Army on the roof of the factory across the street, which poured it’s fire nightly into my room. ...

Helnwein will most certainly attain an appropriate place within the lively history of Austrian art and scandal, which includes the works of Schiele, Gerstl, Schoenberg and others, as well as, the "Viennese Action group" ("Wiener Aktionsgruppe"). ...

An Installation by Gottfried Helnwein in memory of "Kristallnacht" (The Night of Broken Glass) 1938.
The Installation was erected in fall 1988 on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Pogrom in the night of November 9, 1938. The Installation was placed between Ludwig Museum and the Cologne Cathedral, alongside the railroad track of the central station of Cologne.
A hundred meter long wall of pictures with large images of children's faces, in a seemingly endless row, as if made to "line up to be sorted" - "selected". With the faces of christian, jewisch and handicapped children, that lived in Germany in 1988.
The first panel was white and had only one word written on: "Selektion". ...

"In the struggle against the Jew, I defend the acts of God!" Those were Hitler's words in Mein Kampf.
I admire the work of Gottfried Helnwein a great deal. This photographic testimony encourages reflection and provokes the examination of conscience, which is necessary for every one of us where racism is concerned. The laceration of the portraits is proof of the fact that we cannot be indifferent to the warning of the "final solution".
I consider myself lucky to be able to exhibit this gallery of memories in its present form in Lausanne. ...

With the Installation "Ninth of November Night" Gottfried Helnwein wanted to remind us of the "Reichskristallnacht", November 9th to 10th, 1938. He has consciously foregone using documentary archive material. He is chiefly interested in the attitude behind the catastrophe, the roots of the holocaust - the delusion that one is able to measure the worthiness or unworthiness of humans by the form of the nose and ears, by the hair and colour of the eyes. ...

It was to our good fortune that Gottfried Helnwein also strove to break away from the museum and gallery sector in order to communicate with a larger public. This appeared on a grand scale on the site between the cathedral and Museum Ludwig, and at a time of "photokina", with its hundreds of thousands of visitors. The 100 metre picture wall did not fail to hit its mark: it induced bewilderment as well as aggressiveness. After a few days numerous pictures had been slashed, one even stolen. Gottfried Helnwein saw the exhibition as a process which would continue and be reflected in later presentations. The pictures were not renewed, but patched up, so that this reminder of the persecution of Jewish people would bear the traces of a lack of insight and understanding in the present day. ...

Not even the children were spared; they, too, fell victim to the destruction.
It was Gottfried Helnwein's most convincing idea to present the consequences to this "period without mercy" in such an unconventional manner. He made no use of photos of heaped corpses; children's portraits force the observer to stop and consider this idea. The fury with which the neo-nazis reacted to these portraits is understandable inasmuch as it is the very same fury with which they have for years been fighting against The Diary of Anne Frank; the murder of children rouses abhorrence and conflict in every human, whether they are motivated by ideology or insanity. The urge to destroy has survived; the portraits bear witness to its rage - an attempt was made to cut them to shreds. "People, please, stop,... look at these children's faces, multiply their number by a few hundred thousand. Only then will you realise or gain an inkling of the extent of this holocaust, of the greatest tragedy in human history!" ...