
25.10.2023 – 11.02.2024
On the occasion of Gottfried Helnwein’s 75th birthday, the Albertina presents an exhibition of works from the last three decades curated by Elsy Lahner. His work is characterised by an exploration of the themes of pain, injury and violence. His central motif is the figure of the still innocent, vulnerable and defenceless child, who represents all psychological and social fears. Violence against children, child abuse, even the political appropriation and instrumentalisation of the still undescribed spirit are vividly portrayed by Helnwein in his own nightmarish visual language.
The second major theme is the Nazi Third Reich: Helnwein sees it as the pinnacle of a criminal dictatorship, a machine of extermination that is as ruthless as it is coldly calculating. However, it is reenactments with Nazi unforms that remind us that the totalitarianism of that time has remained red-hot right up to our own day.
Gottfried Helnwein
25.10.2023 – 11.02.2024
Albertina
Albertinaplatz 1, 1010 Vienna
www.albertina.at