"Late Regret", 2001, 400 cm x 700 cm, digital print, Kilkenny Town
GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN
The Kilkenny Arts Festival 2001
Exhibition - catalogue
One man show, Butler House, Kilkenny
Installation in the Kilkenny city center
Introduction by curator Claire O'Donoghue
Essay by Mic Moroney
Gottfried Helnwein
by Clare O' Donoghue, 2001
One of the most exciting aspects of prgramming the visual arts for the Kilkenny
Arts Festival has to be the organic nature of the event, the opportunity it
affords to take ideas and allow them to grow and develop. The interaction between
the people involved is what makes these exhibitions so special. In this showing
of new and existing works by Gottfried Helnwein what started as a small part
of the visual arts programme has, because of the power of the artist and his
work and the openness of the whole festival team involved, grown to make a substantial
statement and to produce an exhibition that is very particular to this city.
Although some of the works have been shown in other cities around the world,
the particularity of the chosen sites and the involvement of the local community
make this an exhibition not just about the artist and his work, but also about
the people of Kilkenny.
Ninety children from around the city and country were photographed by the artist
here in the High Street and nine are displayed in central locations around the
city, dramatically enlarged up to 9 metres high. This ongoing project, begun
here, will continue in other cities and towns in Ireland as the artist intends
to expand the work to include one thousand Irish children. These beautiful,confident
and happy children from Kilkenny contrast starkly with some of his more disturbing
imagery. The juxtaposition of historical photographs of the Nazi regime with
religious imagery of the Madonna and Child in the "Epiphany" series
can make uneasy viewing not only in Germany and Austria but also here in Kilkenny.
Amongst a number of possible readings of these works is the uncomfortable relationship
between the church and oppression in its various forms. However, as the artist
Nolde said, "harmless pictures seldom mean anything". Nolde was banned
from painting by the Nazi regime.
Children are a strong theme troughout the artist's work and some of Helnwein's
most striking and poignant images are those of the dead babies "Angels
Sleeping", that the artist discovered in a laboratory in Vienna, babies
from the 19th century preserved in formaldehyde, some deformed and disabled,
that never had a chance of life. By presenting us with these images both in
the painted form and sometimes as 4 or 5 metre vinyl prints he is in his own
way giving them life and their brief existance meaning while confronting us
with the absolute beauty and wonder of human life in all its form. For me these
images are both profoundly moving and spiritual.
Although we are only showing a small aspect of the artist's work it has become
clear that wherever the setting may be for these works, the central core of
his concerns are universal to humanity. Gottfried Helnwein is an artist with
a commanding vision and commitment to making a positive difference. The whole
process, from the chance viewing of an exhibition in London that had the power
to imprint images and ideas on the mind in such a way as to make it imperative
to find out more, to the discussions with the artist and with the people of
Kilkenny about what these works mean to him and to us has been an inspiring
journey that is part of the meaning of the work. This art has the authority
to stop us in our tracks, provoke discussion and maybe even action in a world
where we are often just numbed by the flickering images of burtality.
THE MURMUR OF THE INNOCENTS
1 Aug. 2001
Helnwein catalogue for the Kilkenny Arts Festival 2001
by Mic Moroney
As I write, the Austrian artist, Gottfried Helnwein is wrestling excitedly with
his first exhibition in the country which he recently made his home. The work
spills out of Butler House, and up onto the festival streets of Kilkenny. These
images are huge - in one case as big as six by nine metres, hoisted onto the
facade of Kilkenny Castle.
go: THE
MURMUR OF THE INNOCENTS, by Mic Moroney, 2001
"Late Regret", 2001, 400 cm x 700 cm, digital print, Kilkenny Town
"Epiphany III" (Presentation at the Temple), 2001, 800 cm x 600 cm,
digital print, Kilkenny Town
"Epiphany I" (Adoration of the Magi), 2001, 756cm x 1200cm, digital
print, Kilkenny Castle, kilkenny Arts Festival 2001
http://www.helnwein.com/texte/international_texts/artikel_444.html