The Disasters of War, 2 for Foreign Cinema. Gottfried Helnwein Exhibition poster.

Helnwein, Gottfried (born 1948)

Published by San Francisco: Modernism, 1998

About this Item

Poster. 51 x 81cm. Helnwein repeatedly shows children in military uniforms and holding weapons, some withbandages and bloody wounds. In these works, the artist focuses on the ideological andphysical abuse of children, examining the roles of perpetrator and victim. The girls bring tomind child soldiers. With his works, Helnwein also alludes to the numerous schoolshootings in the United States, where firearms is the leading cause of death for children andadolescents.The title The Disasters of War refers to Francisco de Goya's well-known cycle of prints Losdesastres de la guerra, in which the artist, following Napoleon's military campaign on theIberian Peninsula (1808-1814), condemned the atrocities of the war. Helnwein points out: "I believe it is the artist's responsibility to be a witness of his time, to capture this madness,and prevent people from forgetting. In his work, Goya documented the horrors of war downto the last abominable detail, probably in the futile hope that this would prevent tragedyfrom constantly repeating itself." In Helnwein's art, we are not faced with murder, torture,and rape, we do not see faces distorted by pain. In his monumental pictures, the horrors areconveyed through silence and the children's compelling presence. Over the past four decades, Gottfried Helnwein has developed an extraordinarily powerful and idiosyncratic visual vocabulary reflected in his masterful use of multiple media: painting, drawing, photography, performance, and stage design. Building on artistic precedents including the work of Francesco Goya, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt and Joseph Beuys, Helnwein addresses a broad range of social and political issues, resulting in challenging and provocative artworks. The metaphor for his art is dominated by the image of the child, particularly the wounded child, scarred physically and emotionally from within. Although at times disturbing, these works are deeply humane, and seek spiritual beauty often approaching the transcendental.Most recently the subject of a major retrospective at the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Helnwein's work has been exhibited extensively worldwide, and is featured in the collections of major museums in Europe, Asia and the United States.

Seller Inventory # 51-5635

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Disasters of War, 2 for Foreign Cinema. Gottfried Helnwein Exhibition poster.
• Publisher: San Francisco: Modernism
• Publication Date: 1998
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Exhibition Poster