"The Centre International d'Art Contemporain de Montreal chose a powerful show of black-and-white photos by the Viennese-born artist Gottfried Helnwein. Helnwein's work is everything that Annie Leibovitz's, shown last spring at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, is not. While both shoot celebrities - Helnwein's subjects include Keith Richards, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, William S.Burroughs, and an extremly wasted Andy Warhol - Helnwein's work is concentrated on the Psychological rather than on the gimmicky and the theatrical."

"Es ist der Mensch, ausschließlich der Mensch, das menschliche Antlitz, der vom Leben gezeichnete Mensch. Es geht Helnwein nicht um die schöne Oberfläche des Gesehenen, nicht um ästhetischen Genuß an der Natur und um eine Bestätigung herkömmlicher ästhetischer Normen.
Sein Blick geht tiefer, genauer, unter die Oberfläche, hinter die Fassade. Und was er sieht, ist das, was wir nicht sehen wollen, was wir verdrängen und ausklammern möchten."

"Gottfried Helnwein's wondrous staging of "Der Rosenkavalier" is eccentric and anachronistic — yet utterly faithful to its spirit.
The thing you should know about this "Rosenkavalier" is that it is terrific. Richard Strauss' opera sounds great and looks sensational. It is excellently sung, sumptuously conducted by Kent Nagano and, thanks to Gottfried Helnwein, wondrously strange.
Helnwein — the Austrian artist (painter, photographer, performance artist, filmmaker) who has a studio in downtown L.A. — is known for everything from Marilyn Manson videos to Holocaust installations.
Helnwein's vision of "Rosenkavalier" is monochromatic and a riot of color. It is oddly traditional yet seriously odd. It is updated but couldn't be more 18th century. And none of those opposites contradicts. "

"What dominates, however, in a manner I've seldom seen is Helnwein's use of color -- the monochromatic blue of Act 1 even extends to skin color. Herr von Faninal's house is bathed in a rich golden sheen, from the orange glow of Ochs' silly wig to the platinum of the lovely Sophie's almost-there dress. The final act, in a cheap restaurant, is mainly a glaring red, again from Ochs' wig to his skin and the costumes of the huge band of players. The walls of the restaurant are, incidentally, lined with Helnwein's own works, mainly huge photo-realistic portraits of contemporary women. The 200 costumes Helnwein designed for the piece deserve a whole review for themselves this is inventiveness gone wild, a genius concept, and a huge addition to the production. There might be purists in disagreement here, but this would seem to be a "Rosenkavalier" for the ages."

"The Los Angeles Opera's much-anticipated new production of Strauss's "Rosenkavalier" opened on Sunday night and you can bet that the high-concept and boldly stylized sets and costumes by the designer and visual artist Gottfried Helnwein are going to provoke the strongest reactions.
Restraint was not a hallmark of the outlandishly captivating production. In a detailed program note, Helnwein writes that the era of Maria Theresa was a time when everything was theater, at least for the upper class, and that over-the-top fashion styles often included masks and white-face. His designs combine spartan sets with wildly extravagant costumes ranging in style from the surreal to the ridiculous. Act I is bathed in shades of blue. In their stiffly modern blue suits and blue-faced makeup, the Marschallin's notaries look like the members of Blue Man Group. In Act II, the mansion of Herr von Faninal, a wealthy commoner with aristocratic pretensions, glows with garish golden yellows. Faninal's servants could be creatures from "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," no doubt an intentional evocation: the production begins with projected scenes from Robert Wiene's 1926 silent film adaptation of "Der Rosenkavalier," and Wiene also directed "Caligari." - In any event, the cast seemed empowered by the production."

"Gottfried Helnwein looks more like a rock star than an internationally acclaimed artist. Dressed all in black, with a bandanna around his head and dark glasses hiding his eyes, he resembles, in a superficial way, Bono. Like Bono, he is concerned about the most troubling issues of our times: violence, inhumanity and oppression.
There is a cinematic quality to all of Helnwein's works, which seem to be projected on a wide screen. These "stilled cinematic moments," as Crocker curator Diana Daniels calls them, are powerfully affecting. "He deals with difficult subjects in a way that isn't propagandistic," Daniels said. "It's an open-ended way of dealing with historic subjects that are in danger of slipping away from us." Many of the images are very disturbing, and the museum has issued a warning that some images may be challenging for sensitive or younger viewers. But the show is a powerful one, posing questions we all need to contemplate."

"All a poet can do today is warn”, World War 1 soldier poet, Wilfred Owen, wrote in a draft Preface for a book of anti-war poems he would never see published. He was killed on the eve of Armistice Day 1918. World War One, The Great War, The War to End All Wars . . . within twenty summers, Europe was engulfed again in the even greater catastrophies of the fascist era. The work of Gottfried Helnwein has its genesis in these years. They obsess him as a creative artist. As a kind of guardian angel, he grapples with them on our behalf. That such a nightmare would never visit us again. Or our children. Or our children’s children. Or “. . .all those still to come."

"Helnwein's work is a complex dialectics of corporeality and ideality, accessibility and distance, fragility and invulnerability. In plastic form it is high optical sensitivity (portraits are drawn, yet their photographic basis remains perfectly clear), the forced magic of the fixed stare (the stare of the camera lens and tracking device - no wonder Susan Sontag identified tender homicide in the freeze-frame), heightened physical sensitivity, and coldly estranged form, behind which lie the universal phenomena of love and hate, presence and non-existence. ("There is a certain state of confusion in sensuality, like drowning. It's the nausea you feel when you see a dead body", writes George Bataille)."

"Helnwein is one of the most talented and courageous artists alive--if I may, the Mohammed Ali of the art world."

"Menschlichkeit im Riesenmass (- über das monumentale Kinderbild im Werk Gottfried Helnweins, anlässlich einer Schenkung mehrerer Helnwein-Arbeiten an das Staatliche Russische Museum in St. Petersburg)"

"Many artists use photographs as references to create their paintings – and this is something that has already existed in the 19th century. Lehnbach painted the famous portraits of his contemporaries after photographs. Gerhard Richter and Gottfried Helnwein have given these photographic materials an additional accent – they have transformed them into paintings - not copied them."

"Helnwein is one hell of a painter. His massive, photo-like pictures of vulnerable children are breathtaking, both in the often disturbing nature of the imagery and in the artist’s virtuostic ability to mimic life with pigment (a mixture of oil and acrylic) and brush. Each bloodied hair seems utterly real; pale, near-translucent skin seems to cover actual flesh, and the eyes of Helnwein’s child subjects are damp and deep. But, while Helnwein is a master painter, his skill serves only to bring his carefully crafted scenes to fruition; it is the artist’s combination of sophisticated brushwork and calculated, provocative imagery that defines his art."

"Gottfried Helnwein paints views of sadistic punishment with the care and precision of a latter-day Vermeer."

"Helnwein ist vor allem ein Fotokünstler. Er verstärkt das fotografische Abbild in dramatischen Ausdrücken. Es stimmt, bei ihm nehmen Häßlichkeit und Gewalt eine zentrale Rolle ein, aber nicht um ihrer selbst willen, sondern mit Gründen.
Ich achte seine Kunst."

"Stunning. It’s the best single word to describe Inferno of the Innocents, the exhibit of work Gottfried Helnwein that opened at the Crocker Art Museum."

"Gottfried Helnwein isn't just an artist. He is an inspiration, a voice, and his masterpieces will capture your eyes and touch your soul."

"Will you paint me with bandages?"

"Pluhhars und Hellers, Helnweins und Holleins, Nennings und Bernhards. Sie alle rühren die Werbetrommel, und je depremierter und todessehnsüchtiger, je morbider und selbstzerfleischender sie ihr Lied auf ihre Stadt singen, desto grösser scheint die Anziehungskraft."

"Liegt es am Kulturangebot zwischen Sängerknaben und Sänger Wolfgang Ambros, den Malern Egon Schiele und Gottfried Helnwein, den Architekten Adolf Loos und Hans Hollein?
An den relativ billigen Karten für die teuerste Oper der Welt, an die teilweise herzerquickend skurrilen Museen, an der klug genährten Illusion, dass im musikalischen Wien jeder Spenglergeselle in einem Kammerorchester geige, jede Klosettfrau über Schönberg zu diskutieren wisse?"

"Den berühmtesten Theaterplakatskandal der alten Bundesrepublik löste einst "Die Vereinigung Deutschsprachiger Bürgerinitiativen zum Schutz der Menschenwürde in Deutschland, Frankreich, Holland, Italien, Luxemburg, Österreich und Schweiz" aus. Dieses sprachliche Menschenrechtsverbrechen erstattete 1988 Strafanzeige bei der Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg gegen ein Plakat, das Gottfried Helnwein für Peter Zadeks Inszenierung "Lulu" im Deutschen Schauspielhaus entworfen hatte. Es zeigte einen kleinwüchsigen Mann, der einer Frau in den entblößten Schritt blickt. Die Debatte darüber, ob das "Pornografie" sei, beschäftige die Feuilletons lange, denn Zadek stand im Zenit seines Ruhms, und Hamburg war noch die Pressemetropole schlechthin."