Helnwein was deeply influenced by the Holocaust, as well as by popular cultural references like comics and rock music. His imagery is unsettling, dark, and deeply compelling, carrying powerful messages of political disturbance and social unease. ...

"Finally we are living now in a society that is a combination of what Huxley foresaw in his "Brave new World" and Orwell in his "1984". We are caught in a stream of constant propaganda and we are under total surveillance. This is the Age of materialism, consumerism and decadence. Our heroes are idiots like trash-princess Paris Hilton, in their sad 15 minutes of fame. Children are shooting other children in schools before they kill themselves and in other parts of the world they blow themselves up in the middle of crowds.
Doesn't that look like the end of a civilization, the second fall of Rome?" ...

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Nach "Das Rheingold/Die Walküre" im Opernhaus Bonn, folgt in der Spielzeit 2007/2008 "Siegfried/Die Götterdämmerung" als zweiter Teil. Bühne und Kostüme aller 4 Teile des "Ring des Nibelungen" sind von Gottfried Helnwein gestaltet. ...