Gottfried Helnwein | TEXTS | English Texts | RAMMSTEIN’S RAGERammstein II

For the portraits in Sehnsucht, the Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein photographed the musicians in facial bandages, their lips and eyes stretched wide apart by hideous medical instruments. There is an echo of Trakl, again, in these “cold metal straps.” But it is unreasonable, the musicians protest, to think that images such as this might evoke obscene historical memories. “It’s just reverse discrimination because we are German,” says Lorenz. “If we were Spanish or Dutch, there would be no problem.”


		2005 Reprinted from Azure Spring 2005, No. 20 Claire Berlinski RAMMSTEIN’S RAGE For the portraits in Sehnsucht, the Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein photographed the musicians in facial bandages, their lips and eyes stretched wide apart by hideous medical instruments. There is an echo of Trakl, again, in these “cold metal straps.” But it is unreasonable, the musicians protest, to think that images such as this might evoke obscene historical memories. “It’s just reverse discrimination because we are German,” says Lorenz. “If we were Spanish or Dutch, there would be no problem.”


		Complete text: Rammstein's Rage, www.helnwein.info Rammstein's Rage, by By Claire Berlinski, Azure, January 01, 2005