A common space for harmonic peacemakers

The Child Dreams - Gottfried Helnwein

The Child Dreams

Hanoch Levin

Gil Shohat

World prèmiere: January 18, 2010

The Opera Orchestra - The Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion

Sung in Hebrew

Surtitles in English and Hebrew

A world première, based on one of the most important Israeli plays of all time by Hanoch Levin. A journey of escape towards the unknown in an opera featuring death and despair intertwined with a hope for a better future.

Synopsis

Further Reading:

Selektion - Ninth November Night

Art Installation By Gottfried Helnwein in The Israeli Opera

NTDTV news article

http://helnwein.com/

http://kristallnacht.helnwein.com/

http://www.gottfried-helnwein-child.com/

http://www.helnwein-theater.com/

"My Art is not an answer, - it is a question."

OBJECTS AS HISTORY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY GERMAN ART: BECKMANN

TO BEUYS

Two years after Beuy's death the Viennese artist Gottfried Helnwein created a striking and odd image bringing Breker and Beuys together. Helnwein posed the eighty-eight-year old Breker unconfortably holding Helnwein's portrait of Beuys in front of his chest. The older man with furrowed brow directs the glossy, skeletal image of Beuys-like an icon painting-away from his own gaze and toward that of the viewer.

On the occasion of Helnwein's Solo Show "I Was a Child" at Friedman Benda NY

My first paintings were little watercolors of wounded, disfigured and bandaged children. I was incredibly naive at that time and completely uninformed about any aspect of traditional art; deliberately, because I rejected anything that came from my parents’ generation.
Once I learned about the Holocaust, I realized its implications, and saw the collective denial and amnesia in Austria at that time. Everything froze for me and I refused to move on from that point. Maybe due to my infantile obsession with ‘justness,’ something broke for me, and from then on I felt detached from my ancestors, their traditions and values.
I avoided all established cultural institutions like museums, and I never visited a gallery. I was a proud ‘orphaned’ street kid, glad to be ignorant. I only cared about the so-called ‘trivial arts’ like comics and rock music. In a way, I was privileged when I began painting because I was completely free. I had no influences from other artists and I had no goals regarding a career. I took cheap watercolors and started to paint. It was like talking to myself, I didn’t know where this would lead to and if anyone would ever notice my little paintings. I had no idea if they were any good either because I had nothing to compare them to.

The Child Dreams - Gottfried Helnwein

Documentary about Gottfried Helnwein working on the new Israeli Opera "The Child Dreams", written by Hanoch Levin.
Behind the scenes footage shot by Cyril Helnwein

Music: "Gluttony" composed by Ali Helnwein

World prèmiere: January 18, 2010

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Permalink Reply by Eva Libre on February 16, 2011 at 8:04pm

Gottfried Helnwein photo shoot

A clip from the documentary "Helnwein - The Silence of Innocence". Gottfried Helnwein photographing a model in his Irish studio.

Permalink Reply by Eva Libre on February 17, 2011 at 9:36am

News Update

01. April 2012

Galería Hilario Galguera

Mexico City

SOLO SHOW AT HILARIO GALGUERA, MEXICO CITY

15. February 2012

Friedman Benda Gallery, New York

Chelsea

SOLO SHOW AT FRIEDMAN BENDA, NEW YORK

03. November 2011

Modernism Gallery San Francisco

SOLO SHOW AT MODERNISM, SAN FRANCISCO

04. March 2011

Kunsthalle Krems

VON ENGELN UND BENGELN. 400 JAHRE KINDER IM PORTRÄT

Genese des Kinderporträts vom 16. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart

Gottfried Helnwein, Gustave Courbet, Lovis Corinth, Oskar Kokoschka, Loretta Lux, Thomas Lawrence, Otto Dix, Angelika Kaufmann, Gustav Klimt, Max Liebermann, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Pablo Picasso, Friedrich von Amerling u.v.a.m.

06. February 2011

The Sacramento Bee

Victoria Dalkey

Art Correspondent

GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN'S DISTURBING IMAGES ON DISPLAY AT THE CROCKER

Gottfried Helnwein looks more like a rock star than an internationally acclaimed artist. Dressed all in black, with a bandanna around his head and dark glasses hiding his eyes, he resembles, in a superficial way, Bono. Like Bono, he is concerned about the most troubling issues of our times: violence, inhumanity and oppression.
There is a cinematic quality to all of Helnwein's works, which seem to be projected on a wide screen. These "stilled cinematic moments," as Crocker curator Diana Daniels calls them, are powerfully affecting. "He deals with difficult subjects in a way that isn't propagandistic," Daniels said. "It's an open-ended way of dealing with historic subjects that are in danger of slipping away from us." Many of the images are very disturbing, and the museum has issued a warning that some images may be challenging for sensitive or younger viewers. But the show is a powerful one, posing questions we all need to contemplate.

Permalink Reply by Béatrice LATEUR LACROIX on February 17, 2011 at 6:14pm