Helnwein ( presse )
previous-INDEX-next


The Washington Post
Jo-Ann Lewis
CONUNDRUMS
Baumgartner Galleries is introducing the work of Gottfried Helnwein, a young Viennese artist who shares what seems to be an Austrian obsession with highly detailed realism - with a surrealistic edge. Trained at the Austrian Academy, and now in the process of moving to New York, Helnwein makes figurative drawings and watercolors that are occasionally gruesome, sometimes haunting and always ambiguous. Spatial and narrative ambiguity are, in fact, the central expressive devices in Helnwein's art.

Gottfried Helnwein : Beautiful Victim I
Beautiful Victim I 1974
53 cm x 73 cm
watercolor on cardboard

A large, meticulously painted watercolor titled "A Dream" is typical.
In it, the viewer is lured into pondering whether the lone figure of a child in a muted pink dress is asleep on the ground, or has been hit by a roadside in a puddle, or on white sand in the sun?
Few parents are likely to trot such a painting home to hang over the family hearth, but the artist's ability to conjure up open-ended dramatic narrative is unquestionable.

Easier to look at - and live with - are several small paintings and crosshatched drawings of people caught in poses and with facial expressions that leave everything to the imagination: Are they happy or sad? Asleep or dead? Singing or letting forth with primal screams? These cleverly conceived conundrums will continue through October.

The gallery is open 11 to 6, Tuesdays through Saturdays.


Helnwein, One-man show
Baumgartner Galleries, Washington
1981






Gottfried Helnwein, One-man show Baumgartner Galleries, Washington 1981
03. sierpień 1981 The Washington Post Jo-Ann Lewis



ENGLISHDEUTSCHFRANCAISITALIANOESPANOLPOLSKIRUSSIANCHINESEJAPANESE
Helnwein : presse
AKTUALNOŚCI [
Nowości
]
ARTYSTA [
Studio
Biografia
Wystawy
Zbiory
Bibliografia
]
TWÓRCZOŚĆ [
selected Works
]
TEKSTY [
Wybrani Autorzy
Teksty w języku polskim
Teksty międzynarodowe
]
PRASA [
>Wybrane artykuły
Polska prasa
Prasa międzynarodowa
Internet
]
KONTAKT [
Księga gości
E-mail
Linki
]