There is a basic misconception that any given face, at any given time, looks more or less the same, like a statue's face.
Actually, the human face is as variable from moment to moment as a screen on which images are reflected, from within and from without. I have seen six pictures of the same subject taken in less than a minute - so different one from the other, as not to be recognizable as the same person.

Il est totalement erroné de croire que le visage humain ne change pratiquement pas, tel celui d’une statue. En vérité, le visage humain change constamment, comme l’écran qui reflète des images venues de l’intérieur et de l’extérieur. J’ai vu six photos de la même personne prises en moins d’une minute – si différentes les unes des autres qu’on ne pouvait y reconnaître le même individu.

Les peintures et les photographies de Gottfried Helnwein s’attaquent à cette conception fausse en montrant les divers visages que peut avoir un homme. Pour s’attaquer à cette erreur fondamentale, il lui faut souligner, exagérer à coups de déformations, de bandages et d’ustensiles métalliques qui contraignent ce visage à d’impossibles mimiques. Les images de torture et de folie abondent, comme c’est le cas sur un visage, comme s’il était le reflet sensible de perceptions extrêmes et d’une expérience.

Gottfried Helnwein's paintings and photographs attack this misconception, showing the variety of faces of which any face is capable. And in order to attack the basic misconception, he must underline and exaggerate by distortion, by bandages and metal instruments that force the face into impossible molds.
Images of torture and madness abound, as happens from moment to moment in the face seen as a sensitive reflection of extreme perceptions and experience.

Comment un autoportrait peut-il représenter l’impassibilité d’une statue face aux horreurs qui nous entourent? La torture, la maladie, la peur et la haine qui sont devenues notre lot quotidien, ce que le pape appelle «le banquet de la vie». Ces visages tourmentés disent tous: «Voilà ce que je pense...et ça,...et ça, ...et ça encore...Regardez et vous verrez.» Vous ne pourrez rien montrer à quelqu’un qu’il n’ait déjà vu, autre part, vous ne pourrez rien lui dire non plus qu’il ne vît déjà.

How can a self-portrait depict statuesque calm in the face of the horrors that surround us all? The torture, disease, fear and hatred that has come to be the daily fare of what the Pope calls "the banquet of life".
These tortured faces all say: "This is what I mean... and this... and this... Look, and you will see."
You can't show anyone anything he hasn't seen already, on some level - anymore than you can tell anyone anything he doesn't already know.

It is the function of the artist to evoke the experience of surprised recognition: to show the viewer what he knows but does not know that he knows.
Helnwein is a master of surprised recognition.

C’est la fonction de l’artiste que de provoquer l’expérience de la surprise d’indentifier: de montrer au spectateur qu’il sait sans savoir qu’il sait. Helnwein est un maître en l’art de la surprise d’identifier.

William Burroughs

Lawrence, Kansas
October 1990

William Burroughs wrote this essay about Gottfried Helnwein in October 1990 under the title "Helnwein's work" in Lawrence, Kansas.
The essay was first published in the catalogue "Kindskopf", 1991, by the Museum of Lower Austria for the Helnwein-Installation at the Minoriten Church in Krems, Austria
Director and chief curator was Peter Zawrel.
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2nd publication in "Helnwein Faces", 1992 Edition Stemmle.
ISBN 3-7231-0447-9 (catalogue)
ISBN 3-7231-0427-4 (book)

Museum of Lower Austria, Vienna
Peter Zawrel
director of the Museum of Lower Austria, Vienna
catalogue
text by Peter Zawrel, Peter Gorsen and William S. Burroughs.

KINDSKOPF, Installation by Gottfried Helnwein in the Minoriten church, Krems, 1991

Helnwein meets with Burroughs in Lawrence, Kansas, 1990

"Helnwein Faces", 1992 Edition Stemmle. ISBN 3-7231-0447-9 (catalogue), 3-7231-0427-4 (book)