Armonia International Foundation of Arts
Gaeta, Italia
GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN - ONE MAN SHOW
Caserma Cosenz - Gaeta
Contatti
Sede Legale: Via dei Gracchi, 58 - oo192 Roma C.F. 97414750584
Executive Office: Complesso Leonardo, Via Appia Km.136,3 o4o24 Gaeta
Tel: +39.0771 712481 / +39.333 1093341
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Mail: info@armoniafoundation.com
Untitled (The Disasters of War 12)
The Golden Age I
Interview:
Friedman Benda Gallery, New York
Peter Frank
PETER FRANK TALKS WITH GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN
On the occasion of Helnwein’s Solo Show “I Was a Child” at Friedman Benda NY
My first paintings were little watercolors of wounded, disfigured and bandaged children. I was incredibly naive at that time and completely uninformed about any aspect of traditional art; deliberately, because I rejected anything that came from my parents’ generation.
Once I learned about the Holocaust, I realized its implications, and saw the collective denial and amnesia in Austria at that time. Everything froze for me and I refused to move on from that point. Maybe due to my infantile obsession with ‘justness,’ something broke for me, and from then on I felt detached from my ancestors, their traditions and values.
I avoided all established cultural institutions like museums, and I never visited a gallery. I was a proud ‘orphaned’ street kid, glad to be ignorant. I only cared about the so-called ‘trivial arts’ like comics and rock music. In a way, I was privileged when I began painting because I was completely free. I had no influences from other artists and I had no goals regarding a career. I took cheap watercolors and started to paint. It was like talking to myself, I didn’t know where this would lead to and if anyone would ever notice my little paintings. I had no idea if they were any good either because I had nothing to compare them to.
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Gottfried Helnwein (born October 8, 1948 in Vienna) is an Austrian-Irish fine artist, photographer, installation and performance artist.Helnwein studied at the University of Visual Art in Vienna (Akademie der Bildenden Knste, Wien).
He was awarded the Master-class prize (Meisterschulpreis) of the University of Visual Art, Vienna, the Kardinal-König prize and the Theodor-Körner prize.
He has worked as a painter, draftsman, photographer, muralist, sculptor, installation- and performance artist, using a wide variety of techniques and media.
His early work consists mainly of hyper-realistic watercolors, depicting wounded children, as well as performances - often with children - in public spaces. Helnwein is a conceptual artist, concerned primarily with psychological and sociological anxiety, historical issues and political topics. As a result of this, his work is often considered provocative and controversial.Viennese-born Helnwein is part of a tradition going back to the 18th century, to which Messerschmidt's grimacing sculptures belong. One sees, too, the common ground of his works with those of Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, two other Viennese, who display their own bodies in the frame of reference of injury, pain, and death. One can also see this fascination for body language goes back to the expressive gesture in the work of Egon Schiele.
Helnweins subject matter involves the complexities of the human condition. His disturbing yet provocative images of physically and emotionally wounded children have been seen as metaphors for larger global issues. He portrays the innocence of adolescence against the backdrop of historical events like the Holocaust to highlight the fragility of humanity in an unstable world.Another strong element in his work are comics. Helnwein has sensed the superiority of cartoon life over real life ever since he was a child. A biographical story, explains his obsession with Disney characters. Growing up in dreary, destructed post-war Vienna, the young boy was surrounded by unsmiling people haunted by a recent past they could never speak about. What changed his life was the first German-language Disney comic book that his father brought home one day. Opening the book felt like finally arriving in a world where he belonged:"...a decent world where one could get attened by steam-rollers and perforated by bullets without serious harm. A world in which the people still looked proper, with yellow beaks or black knobs instead of noses." (Helnwein)
'Helnweins oeuvre embraces total antipodes: The trivial, for example, the Disney-culture, alternates with visions of spiritual doom, the divine in the child contrasts with horror-images of child-abuse. But violence remains to be his basic theme, - the physical and the emotional suffering, inflicted by one human being unto another.'
Helnwein is also known for his stage and costume designs of theater, ballet and opera productions. Amongst them Hamburg State Opera, Volksbühne Berlin, Stuttgart National Theatre, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Los Angeles Opera and Israeli Opera Tel Aviv
