Apocalipsa lui Gottfried Helnwein

“Apokalypse”, 1999
http://www.helnwein.com/kuenstler/biografie/artikel_864.html

Apokalypse, one man show and Installation by Gottfried Helnwein at the Dominican Church in Krems.
Only in this way was Helnwein able to trigger the shock that he intended, a shock with a possible healing effect whose first target was the repression of the greatest trauma of our century. The repression of National Socialism, the Austrian people complicity in it and its consequences had been declared an official policy in Austria. In this way the generations born after 1945 had no chance to deal with the barbaric, neither with its outbreak a few years earlier nor with its lingering latent presence.
Everything had become harmless again. The revelation occurred only in 1986 when Kurt Waldheim became President of Austria and a “case” that was discussed world-wide. Based on this specifically Austrian situation Helnwein developed a visual language of
apocalyptic vision that can be understood all over the world. The beautiful and the ugly, the fear of the terrible and the power of ts fascination, the clearly recognisable and that which cannot be interpreted but lurks outside the painting as well as outside the nursery door, and more closely intertwined in these pictures than those of any other living artist.
The enigma of Helnwein’s paintings always has to do with guilt and atonement, perpetrators and victims, accusation and remorse. He has never escaped the Christian world of ideas and images of his childhood, but instead has used it for his own artistic purposes.

http://www.helnwein.com/werke/photo/tafel_4.html

“Ninth November Night”, 1988
http://www.helnwein.com/kuenstler/biografie/artikel_823.html

Large installation in the city center of Cologne, between the Ludwig Museum and the Cologne Cathedral: “Neunter November Nacht” (Ninth November Night).
A four-meter-high, hundred-meter-long picture lane in which Helnwein recalls the “Reichskristallnacht”, the beginning of the Holocaust, on 9 November 1938. He confronts the passersby with larger-than-life children’s faces lined up in a seemingly endless row, as if for concentration camp selection. 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

http://www.helnwein.com/werke/photo/tafel_2.html

Nu prea sunt multe de zis, volumul de informaţii disponibil pe site-ul oficial este imens, pentru cei interesaţi adresa este mai jos. M-a fascinat de multă vreme arta lui Gottfried Helnwein, sunt imagini şocante, puternice, reale. Au un mesaj. Te provoacă să îţi aminteşti de istorie, să-ţi pui întrebări, să deschizi ochii la lumea din jurul tău — se întîmplă lucruri importante, dar unii oameni nu le observă niciodată. Nu participă niciodată la nimic… viaţa li se întîmplă pur şi simplu. Se menţin printr-o stăruinţă mai mult sau mai puţin tîmpă şi rezistă cu furie sau violenţă la orice i-ar putea smulge din inverşunatele lor iluzii de securitate.

My Art is not an answer, – it is a question. — Gottfried Helnwein

http://www.helnwein.com.