Listen. I tried very hard to think up both a concise and comprehensive bio about Gottfried Helnwein, the artist whose work is featured exclusively throughout our debut album, but it is virtually impossible to wrap my tiny arms around this guy's legacy in one email. And it'd be an insult to try. So I'll just say the following, and let your pending curiosty to explore his body of work speak the rest:
Mark my words, someday Helnwein will immortally reside in art history textbooks, right next to Van Gogh and Warhol. ...

gottfried helnwein is really amazing the shit out of me right now. I mean who else can manage to be grotesque and still classy and inspiring? i mean this is the first stranger/artist that really wants to make me sit down and pick his brains and fall in love with his ingenuity. everything about his art is incredible, right down to the titles.
i mean you really have to see this ...

...the last room was dedicated to contemporary artists with really good choices, there's even a Warhol Donald Duck canvas, and also a beautiful piece of Gottfried Helnwein which I happen to have been loving for years, "American Prayer". ...

I went to the Denver Art Museum today to see the newly opened expansion and in particular, the Radar collection. Very inspiring work, I have to say they are the most interesting and provocative pieces I've seen on display in Denver, ever. My favorite pieces were the works by Damien Hirst and the "Adoration of the Magi" by Gottfried Helnwein. ...

Gottfried Helnwein's Epiphany (Adoration of the Magi) is a strange takeoff on a traditional New Testament theme in art. The work depicts a Madonnalike mother displaying her baby to attentive Nazi officers, Painted in hyperrealist grisaille with chiaroscuro effects, the work resembles an old documentary photograph made huge. The eerie, sinister overtones are unmistakable. Who is this mother? What do these officers want with her and her child? What kind of official paper might the officer on the left hold in his hand and what might be its result? Helnwein, characteristically, presents us with an ambiguous, haunting image and leaves us to wonder about its meaning...
With its huge size, hyperrealist style, and disturbing content, this unsettling work bestows a psychological anxiety accompanied by a strong magnetic pull. Confronting it, we tend to stare-entranced by both its beauty and its seductive, malevolent overtones... ...

The inspirations for this piece include: Buddhism, Stendhal's Syndrome, Nietzsche's God is Dead, the work of Gottfried Helnwein...
Le ispirazioni per questo pezzo includono: il buddismo, la sindrome di Stendhal, Dio è morto di Nietzsche, l'opera di Gottfried Helnwein... ...

Adoration of the Magi (1496) by Filippino Lippi - Epiphany (Adoration of the Magi) 1996 by Gottfried Helnwein.
If you noticed the completion dates, you would be correct to count 500 years difference between them. Considering Helnwein body of work, I don't think his 1996 completion date is entirely coincidental. Is there a meaning behind the date? Probably, but you will have to ask him. On the other hand, there were quite a few "Adoration of Magi" paintings and I am just putting too much thought into the two I found the most interesting. But then again, art is very subjective and I have chosen to give meaning to these two works of art and hence find the 500 years relevant. ...

{i am a madwoman right now. soon enough i'll burn out/fade away.}
{& yes, this was a school assignment, so kill me.} ...

THE SYMBOLISM OF GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN ...

...

He just crashed very high into my favorite painters ever list. So impressive, check out the rest of his work here.
::update:: Well maybe you're better off NOT to check it, at least not the stuff before 2005. The 2005 stuff I LOVE.
But the stuff before that, maybe a matter of taste, but I just discovered he also made really sick disturbing stuff that's just sick sick sick that I think is just so disturbing I don't even want to link it here (it's at his watercolors section "the intrusion", most specifically, well most of that page in general actually.). Why!? Whyyy? How can that be! ...

целую, князь ([info]activatemorlack) wrote, @ 2006-06-10 01:48:00 ...

This month FanMail client NOCTALUCA released their album "Towering the Sum" to a frenzy of anticipation and critical acclaim.
In a recent newsletter to their fans, Noctaluca introduced GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN and exlained how the artist inspired the album. The really cool thing about the newsletter is that it was almost entirely about something other than themselves. No cheesy self portraits or "here are our tour dates" or "thanks to the people who love us". The entire newsletter was focused on the artist that had influenced them.
Bravo! ...

Konsequent und virtuos. Technische Meisterschaft und auch die Konsequenz einer packenden sozialkritischen Thematik offenbaren sich in dieser Ausstellung: Gewalt, Schmerz, Verletzung werden dargestellt. Den Körper ebenso wie die Psyche betreffend. Helnwein dokumentiert hier in Linz einen künstlerischen Reifegrad, der eine weitere Steigerung kaum vorstellbar macht. Seine Eingriffe sind von einer schmerzhaften Unmittelbarkeit, deren emotionale Energie weit über die großen Bildformate hinaus den Raum und sein Publikum ergreift. (Irene Judmayer - Oberösterreichische Nachrichten) ...

ALL CONTENT © NICK KUSHNER 2006
EXCLUDING IMAGES BY GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN ...

Un rientro in Austria, dopo un volontario esilio. Sembra che ad averlo trascinato da queste parti sia stata la corrente del Danubio, giacché l’approdo è avvenuto sulla riva di questo fiume. Dove spicca un museo...
Lentos ha fatto, e fa, parlare di sé. È il nome della nuova sede del museo d’arte contemporanea di Linz, ricca e famosa città danubiana. Lentos è un grande edificio dalla forma di parallelepipedo con epidermide di vetro, che dal tramonto all’alba cambia colore in continuazione. Ha la vocazione cromatica del camaleonte, ma non per mimetizzarsi, anzi tutto il contrario. In effetti anche le mostre che propone hanno la seduzione del richiamo impetuoso e un taglio particolarmente penetrante. Come quella in corso, per esempio: sfacciata, perturbante, provocatoria fino all’insostenibilità. È tutta così l’opera di Gottfried Helnweil (Vienna, 1948): le sue armi pittoriche sono fin troppo figurative, il suo linguaggio più che realistico, le sue trame sempre inquietanti. Face It, titolo della mostra, è una retrospettiva e una mostra tematica nello stesso tempo, dove il viso umano è soggetto e leitmotiv. ...

Drei Topfilme über den Starkünstler Gottfried Helnwein - darunter eine brandneue, 2006 entstandene Dokumentation.
19.00 Uhr "Der Provokateur" von C. Teissig, 2006 (45 min.)
20.00 Uhr "Helnwein" von Peter Hajek, 1984 (45 min.)
21.00 Uhr "Neunter November Nacht", 2003 (25 min.) Dokumentation über Helnweins Aufsehen erregende Kölner Aktion zum 50. Jahrestag der "Reichskristallnacht" ...

I have a few weeks to choose my destination for my next University year.
PLEASE GIVE YOUR OPINION!!!
Both cities are the capitals of the countries, both are beautiful, both have a big history behind them & I'm in love with both of them.
VIENNA:
It's the city of Beethoven, Strauss, Falco, Klimt, Hundertwasser, Helnwein, Kaiser Franz-Joseph, Sissi, Sigmund Freud, ... It's the country of Mozart, Swarovski, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Schubert, Haydn, ....
Main language: German
It's the 4th most visited city in Europe. ...

Helnwein se apodera de la técnica para hacernos ver el dolor desmitificándolo,
sus obras hablan como si la originalidad le perteneciese aunque sólo el sufrimiento pareciera, a la larga, pertenecerle.
Sus imágenes son víctimas, aunque también posibles victimarios (al mismo tiempo), colores degradados que degradan a los personajes que habitan sus composiciones, posiblemente Helnwein hace teatro en dos dimensiones.
Helnwein nos permite reconocer: recordar que conocemos/sabemos lo que estamos viendo y hacernos ver lo provocativo que resulta eso, que la ansiedad que nos provoca es la muestra de que nos reconocemos en su obra y que él nos ha identificado, que la sombra que vemos alejarse de la escena ciega es sólo nuestra incapacidad de prevenir escenas ciegas, de tan ciegos que estamos a veces. ...

Κοιτάζοντας το τελευταίο τευχος του spartandog θυμήθηκα τον Gottfried Helnwein. Eίναι γνωστός στο ευρύ κοινό για την αυτοπροσωπογραφία του, που το 1982 έγινε εξώφυλλο του blackout των scorpions. Σαν εικαστικός γενικότερα χαρακτηρίστηκε απο τους αερογράφους και τα ακρυλικα που έκανε τις δεκάετιες 70 και 80 που σοκάριζαν και προκαλούσαν με τα "φιλο-νοσοκομειακα" και βίαια θέματα του. ...