Gottfried Helnwein

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, p...

* 1982 Helnwein was offered a chair by the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg, which he declined.* 1985 one man show at the Albertina, Vienna. Rudolf Hausner, recommended Helnwein as his successor as professor of the master-class for painting at the University of Visual Art in Vienna, but Helnwein left Vienna and moved to Germany.* The film "Helnwein", produced by the German and Austrian National televisions, received the Adolf-Grimme prize for best television-documentary, the Eduard-Rhein prize and the Goldenen Kader award.* Besides his realistic work, Helnwein also began to develop abstract, expressive styles of painting during this period.* 1988, In remembrance of "Kristallnacht", the actual beginning of the Holocaust - 50 years earlier, Helnwein erected a 100 meter long installation in the city center of Cologne, between Ludwig Museum and the Cologne Cathedral. Just days into the exhibit, these portraits were vandalized by unknown persons, symbolically cutting the throats of the depicted children's faces.Since then large scale installations in public spaces became an important part of his work.* 1990 Helnwein began to focus on digital photography and computer-generated images which he often combines with classical oil-pa...

One-man Exhibitions:
2013
Retrospective
Albertina Museum, Vienna


2012
Faith, Hope and Charity
Museo Nacional de San Carlos, Mexico City

Song of the Aurora
Galeria Hilario Galguera, Mexico City

2011
Inferno of the Innocents
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento
California

Retrospektive
Santralistanbul, Museum for Contemporary Art, Main Gallery
Istanbul, Türkei

Modernism Gallery, San Francisco



2010
Friedman Benda Gallery, New York
Chelsea

Neunter November Nacht, Installation
Tel Aviv



2009
Friedman Benda Gallery, New York
Chelsea

Murmur of the Innocents
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco

Fotográfica Bogotá 2009
Museo de Arte Colonial
Bogotá, Kolumbien

The Armory Show
The International Fair of New Art
Friedman Benda Gallery, New York

Central European House of Photography, Slowakei
Österreichisches Kulturforum in Bratislava



2008
Modern Sleep, Retrospektive
Galerie Rudolfinum, Prag
Tschechische Republik

I Walk Alone
Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery
San Jose State University

The Disasters of War II
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco

The Last Child, Installation
Waterford City, Irland

Neunter November Nacht, Installation
City of Philadelphia

The...