"Helnwein's work is perfectly executed proof of the mastery of all the available means to outdo the reality in depiction.
Only in this way was Helnwein able to trigger the shock that he intended, a shock with a possible healing effect.
Helnwein developed a visual language depicting apocalyptic visions that can be understood all over the world. The beautiful and the ugly, the fear of the terrible and the power of its 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."

"Gottfried Helnwein is a brave virtuoso of versatility. In his work, he forces us to confront, via his visual wit, brio, and candor, the human face of violence and angst.
Helnwein's work prods us to react, yet not simply because it is "shocking". His main message in fact is: be brave. Be daring. And most importantly, be willing to confront even the darkest side of human nature - after all, it's something we cannot escape. "

"Look at Helnwein's painting under Visual Sociology. What was Helnwein saying? Why was he willing to offend. Why did one of my students make a giant box that when opened had a lovely smiling face inside that said "F^&* the Patriot Act"?? Isn't that a lot like what Helnwein and Kiefer and Beuys were doing? Maybe saying "wake up and look at what you're doing?"

"The most powerful images that deal with Nazism and Holocaust themes are by Anselm Kiefer and Helnwein, although, Kiefer's work differs considerably from Helnwein's in his concern with the effect of German aggression on the national psyche and the complexities of German cultural heritage. But Kiefer and Helnwein's work are both informed by the personal experience of growing up in post-war German speaking countries...
William Burroughs said that the American revolution begins in books and music, and political operatives implement the changes after the fact. To this maybe we can add art.
And Helnwein's art might have the capacity to instigate change by piercing the veil of political correctness to recapture the primitive gesture inherent in art."

"Austria has been one of the main hubs of European culture, especially in music and art. The artists are not always conventional or conformist. Like the recent Nobel Prize winner for literature, Elfriede Jelinek, some of Helnwein’s work, which takes an uncomfortable look at Austria’s past and the unhealthily close relationship between Church and Sate in the Nazi era, has caused controversy.
I think we should be in no doubt that we are in the presence of the work of an artist of exceptional stature."

"Your paintings have left a deep impact on me.
To be honest - they have shocked me.
I have thought about it for a long time and came finally to the conclusion, that people should be confronted with these images to be inspired to think."

"In a moving exhibition at the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hannover, paintings of the Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein are on view. One of his paintings shows a girl with a rascally face wearing an armband for the blind, with her tongue sticking out. At first I smiled. If you keep looking at this painting, you will see that the girl has blood running down the inside of her legs. The child obviously was abused, force was used against her... yes, children are vulnerable. Childhood can be terrible, when children are at the mercy of someone.
- I'm thinking of the 12 year old Judith Wischnajatskaja, who wrote her last letter in July 1942: "Dear Father! With death I bid you goodbye. We would like to live so much but we are not allowed, we will perish. I am so afraid of this death because the little children are thrown into the pit alive."

"Helnwein's Images are shocking - may it be through drastic depiction of the opressing or opressed human being, or through the deconstruction of conventional and accommodating pictures.
Is it possible that the reason for the outraged reaction lies in the beholder himself?
Helnwein is an exceedingly political artist, not through big speeches but through the message of his art. That's why his work is important especially in times where artists often confine themself to shallow fun-culture. "

"The theme of violence and the theme “he as victim” proceed from Beckmann’s early work from 1907 till today.
Bruce Naumann, Marcel Odenbach, Jeff Wall und Gottfried Helnwein changed the artistic means radically but not the theme itself.
Helnwein’s fascinating oeuvre embraces total antipodes. Helnwein is an artist of uncompromising expression: The trivial, for example the Disney-culture, alternates with visions of spiritual doom, the divine in the child contrasts with horror-images of child-abuse.
But violence remains to be his basic theme, - the physical and the emotional suffering, inflicted by one human being unto another."

"The grin found on the faces of ill-treated children, a grotesque picture puzzle which includes both the martyrdom and subversion of mankind is entirely Helnwein’s invention. It is manifested in the metamorphic images of injured bodies. It is an obsessive pattern which is repeated in Helnwein’s pictoral representation of the world and in his staged artistic actions, serving as a metaphor for the invulnerability and invincibility deeply seated in man."

""In memory of the children of Europe who have to die of cold and hunger this Xmas", was written on the draft of a poster in the winter of 1945 by the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka who emigrated to London. He had 5000 copies printed at his own cost and posted in underground stations.
In late autumn 1988 the Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein, who emigrated to the Rhineland, mounted a series of five meter high photo prints with children's faces along a one hundred meter long wall between the cathedral of Cologne and the Museum Ludwig. He called the work Selection (Ninth November Night). It is a work of monstrous expression and painful effect. His title recalls the anniversary of the so-called Reichskristallnacht, through which Helnwein gives the children's portraits their almost overwhelmingly harrowing effect.
As we were preparing his exhibition for the Lentos Art Museum together with Gottfried Helnwein, I was researching at the same time for a different project about Kokoschka. The story of the London posters was new to me. Unintentionally and unexpectedly the two artist lives blended into one another for a brief poignant moment. With a tremendous creative effort, ability to communicate, organizational experience, implementation energy and financial resources, both artists devoted themselves on a specific occasion to an appeal: Remember!"

"Einer erstellt die summe seiner beobachtungen in dieser welt der patzer und dämonen.
er vernimmt die schreie aus den gekachelten schreckträumen abseits einer satten gesellschaft, die weder mit dem laub der bäume noch mit dem grün der laubfrösche noch mit den froschaugen des miterlebens zu schaffen haben will.
er aber hört manche, die da schreien bis ihnen die gehirne zerspringen wie lichtjahre, und hört andere, still vor sich hinweinende, deren tropfende tränen eines noch-hoffens mit dem abscheulichen eisskalpell der hoffnungslosigkeit seziert werden. "

"Die Zurschaustellung des eigenen Körpers als Verwesungsmasse beginnt mit den Selbstporträts von George Grosz als Suizidgestalt im Kaffeehaus und reicht über die wie durch den Fleischwolf gedrehten Konterfeis eines Francis Bacon bis hin zur Leichenfledderei am eigenen Leib bei Günter Brus, Kurt Kren oder Frank Tovey, dem jüngst verstorbenen Enfant terrible der experimentellen New-Wave-Szene der 1980er Jahre. Die Befreiung des melancholischen Bewusstseins durch den Tod bietet keine philosophische Perspektive mehr. Es ist ihm ohnedies schon anheim gefallen. Stattdessen wird der Suizid in einer Performance masochistischer Selbstverstümmelung kultisch sublimiert.
In einer fotografischen Inszenierung Gottfried Helnweins erhebt sich der Künstler, fäulnisschwarz und monumental wie das Mahnmal einer letzen Einsicht: “So ist Verzweiflung, diese Krankheit im Selbst, die Krankheit zum Tode. Der verzweifelte ist todkrank. Der Tod ist nicht das letzte der Krankheit, aber der Tod ist in einem fort das Letzte. Von dieser Krankheit erlöst zu werden durch den Tod ist eine Unmöglichkeit, denn die Krankheit und deren Qual und der Tod ist gerade, nicht sterben zu können.”

So ist die Geschichte der Moderne nicht zuletzt auch eine Erfolgsgeschichte der Melancholie und des Eindringens ihres schwarzen Spuks in die letzten Paradiese des Seins- und Weltvertrauens. "

"His paintings represent a fusion of historic and contemporary artistic practices, uniting the Romantic aesthetic of Caspar David Friedrich, the political radicalism of Viennese Actionists and the technical
precision of the photorealists of the 1970’s. Although often based on photographs, or inspired by film stills, his paintings are built up in fine layers of traditional oil paint and represent a degree of
technical accomplishment rarely seen in European academies. He uses this technical accomplishment and finesse to carry across the strong political message contained in his art."

"It has been described that the artist's place on the planet is to be the canary that's sent down into the coal-mine to sniff out whether the air down there is poisonous. And if the canary comes up alive we can all go there. It takes a particular canary to sniff that out, and I think Gottfried Helnwein keeps coming back up to the surface no matter how poisonous the air and that gives us a lot of belief in our own ability to do it and to reconcile things."

"The works of Gottfried Helnwein are technically classified as hyper-realism (surpassing super-realism) and at first glance are practically indistinguishable from photographs. Though realistic in terms of technique, most of Helnwein's works are characterized by metaphorical implications.
Included in all of Gottfried Helnwein's work, this basic principle demonstrates a reflection of the aesthetics of popular culture and irony, and represent Helnwein's major outlook on the world. Gottfried Helnwein is endowed with perfect pitch and distinguished sense of contemporary issues.
As a painter whose art deals with issues confronting human society, Helnwein creates a new standard of measuring modernism. "

"Die Provokationen des Künstlers sind subversiv und klammheimlich.
Sie packen den entsetzten Betrachter eben da an, wo die antrainierten Verdrängungsmechanismen sonst so gut funktionieren.
Das wird am deutlichsten bei Helnweins Kinderbildern. Zarte pastellfarbene Zeichnungen, die zum Horrortrip für den Betrachter werden. Die sanften Kindergesichter sind durch Verletzungen furchtbar entstellt. Hasenscharten, Narben, Wundmale, Klammern, Kanülen, Bandagen.
Der Anblick ist kaum auszuhalten. Aber was bedeutet das schon gegen die täglich von vielen tausend Kindern erlittenen Schmerzen, Qualen und Folterungen?
Ein künstlerischer Aufschrei geen die Schmerzen der Welt.
Helnwein denunziert nicht die Kinder - das häufigste Missverständnis, mit dem man sich gegen seine Kunst wehrt - sondern unsere Neigung, vor dem Leiden die Augen zu verschliessen.
Der Künstler entlarvt das Bedürfnis nach heiler Welt (oft nur eine Form von Abgestumpftheit) als unmoralisch, als Angst vor der Realität .
Ein Moralist mit sadistischen Mitteln."

"Helnwein's images of children prove to be his real self-portraits."

"Helnwein's realization (of the opera "The Child Dreams" after Hanoch Levin's play) takes the breath away: a view of dozens of bloodied children's bodies, some of them hanging, some of them turning over and over in mid-air, as a vocal ensemble sings their words while kneeling on stage.
This vision connects eerily with an exhibition in the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Centre plaza, adapted from one the Austrian Artist mounted in Cologne in 1988, marking the 50th anniversary of the Nazis' anti-Jewish Kristallnacht. It shows two rows of innocent, haunted-looking child's faces, one row with eyes open; the other with eyes closed, lined up as if in a concentration camp"

"The disturbing thing about Helnwein’s work is its ability to involve the viewer in the themes, strangely brought about by their detached presentation. It is a great marvel that an exhibition of such pristine images will leave you feeling dirty inside."