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People avoid seeing the hurt in the world

Book review written by Pinar Ciftci
New Time has met an artist who wants to show people what they do not want to see: the dark sides of man.

(THIS ARTICLE IS ONLY MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

In Hitler's homeland on a cloudy winter day, I meet the artist Gottfried Helnwein. It is possible he will take me into the darkness of the people, where I find myself at the Viennese café Landtmann one cool Friday afternoon. And it is when darkness subsides that world-renowned Irish-Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein arrives dressed in his distinctive black headscarf.

"The oppression of children and women is the darkest chapter in human history."

Helnwein was born in Vienna just after World War II (1948). Here he went to the Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der Bildenden Künste) – where Hitler applied twice, but was rejected. Today Helnwein lives in Los Angeles and Ireland, but visits Vienna from time to time.

Behind his glasses with black lenses, he says: – I am associated with the culture here. Until the 1980s, Vienna was a terrible place – the two world wars had destroyed. . .

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Pinar Ciftci
Ciftci is a journalist and actor.

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Full 100-page MODERN TIMES including the appendix Orientering and Modern Times Review comes out quarterly (March 1, June 1, September 1 and December 1) with international book reviews, essays and comments – in addition to the physical newspaper and PDF, the articles are eventually published online here (see also the newsletter).

© MODERN TIMES & Orientering AS Dronningensgt. 16, 0152 Oslo Chief editor: Truls Lie

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