Walks with his friend Manfred Deix from Venice to Vienna over several days without eating or sleeping.
From 1966 First Aktions for a small audience; cuts his face and hands several times with razor blades, wood-engraving tools, and the edges of skis. First bandaging happenings.
Works on a series of hyper-realistic paintings of wounded and tortured children.
Intensive research into the various forms of trivial aesthetics such as comics, advertising, and film; puts this experience into his work. Water colour: "Unkeusches Kind" (Unchaste Child), "Peinlich" (Embarrassing), "Gemeines Kind" (Mean Child); first oil paintings: "Mutter, Du hier?" (Mother, Is It You?); "Führer, wir danken Dir!" (Führer, We Thank You!).
1970 Academy Prize.
First photographic self-portraits with bandages and surgical instruments; photo happenings with children.
In his attempt to paint a truly bad picture he creates the water colour "Spezial" (Special).
First one-man exhibition, Night Gallery in the Atrium Vienna.
Aktion: "Die Akademie brennt" (Academy Burning); with two fellow students Helnwein stages a rebellion at the Academy of Visual Arts. The reason is the refusal of the professors to allow the student representatives a say in the entrance examinations. Professors are locked in and serious damage is done to property. Helnwein and his colleagues are picked up by the police and charged. The Minister of Science and Art declares their actions to be political. Investigation and criminal proceedings are dropped.
First public Aktions in Vienna in the streets, in coffee houses, etc.
In an exhibition in the Vienna Künstlerhaus, unidentified people put "Entartete Kunst" (the Nazis' term for "degenerate art") stickers on Helnwein's pictures. At the opening of an exhibition in Galerie D in Mödling, near Vienna, the mayor has pictures by Helnwein confiscated by the police.
An exhibition of Helnwein paintings in the Gallery of the House of the Press in Vienna is closed after three days because of strong protests and strike threats by the works council.
Work on a series of pen-and-ink, crayon and pencil drawings: "Freud und Leid" (Joy and Suffer); "Da kräht er vor Vergnügen, der kleine Mann" (He's Crowing It with Pleasure, the Little Man); "Das Patengeschenk" (The Christening Present).
Scratches and scrapes a series of self-portraits and child-photos with luminous stigma.
1973 First edition of an etching "Meine Buben haben einen Türken in die Schlucht gestossen" (My Little Rascals Have Shoved a Turk into the Ravine).
More pen-and-ink drawings and happenings with children; ORF (Austrian national TV) film: "Engagierte Kunst?" (Committed Art?), directed by E. Kroiss;
First cover for the political and cultural magazine "Profil"
("Selbstmord in Österreich" [Suicide in Austria]) showing a little girl slashing her wrists. Strong public reactions; many readers cancel their subscriptions.
"Weisse Kinder" (White Children) Aktion with 15 bandaged children in Kärntnerstrasse, in the centre of Vienna.
ZDF (German national TV) film portrait "Helnweins Sehtest" (Helnwein's Eye Test), directed by Heinz Dieckmann.
1975 Works on a series of pen-and-ink drawings on the subject of corrective devices ("Metallippe zum Lächeln" [Metal Lip for Smiling]; "Korrekturspange" [Corrective Brace]; "Das Wannenwunder von Watras" [The Bathtub Wonder of Watras]; "Assistent Assmann" [Assistant Assmann]; "Hilfe für Mann ohne Kinn" [Help for Man with no Chin] etc.).
1976 "Allzeit Bereit" (Always Prepared) Aktion at the Naschmarkt, Vienna.
1977 Seven-month stay abroad, studying in the USA.
Intensive involvement with the work of Kandinsky and Walt Disney.
1979 One-man show with pen-and-ink drawings in the Albertina Museum, Vienna.
Aktion in the International Year of the Child.
R. Höpfinger and E. Regnier hand out sweets and toys bearing texts and Helnwein pictures of wounded and tortured children to passers-by in Zürich.
Helnwein became intensively involved with the phenomenon of the split between High Art and Trivial Art. He saw this as an apartheid situation in 20th century culture.
There followed the pictures of "Peter der Grosse" (Peter the Great), the Austrian singer Peter Alexander, and "Niki Lauda", the Austrian Formula-1 champion; the NDR film "Helnwein malt Lauda" (Helnwein paints Lauda) directed by Viktoria von Fleming.
The art establishment and the critics are shocked by these works and reject them. The Austrian playwright Wolfgang Bauer, on the other hand, is enthusiastic about these works and calls them "painting for eternity". The critic of the "Neue Zeit" retorts: "Let us hope that eternity will resist such impertinence."
Inspired by Helnwein's James Dean apotheosis, Wolfgang Bauer writes the ballad "Song for Helnwein Boulevard of Broken Dreams".
First encounter and start of the friendship with H. C. Artmann; first monograph, texts: H. C. Artmann, Botho Strauss, Wolfgang Bauer and Barbara Frischmuth.
1982 Meets the Rolling Stones in London. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman pose for Helnwein.
Helnwein's portrait of Kennedy makes the cover of "Time" for the 20th anniversary of the President's death.
The Higher College of Visual Art (Fachhochschule für Gestaltung) in Hamburg offers Helnwein a Chair. Helnwein declines the offer.
Bavarian Television produces a film portrait of Helnwein directed by Hans-Dieter Hartl.
1983 One-man show in the Stadtmuseum Munich.
The exhibition is seen by more than a hundred thousand people.
Andy Warhol poses for Helnwein in New York for a series of photos.
First encounter with Peter Zadek, theatre director.
"Rettet die Donau" (Save the Danube) the Austrian art-collector and patron Hans Dichand finances a campaign with large bill- boards of Helnwein's artwork throughout Austria against the destruction of the last great riverside meadowland woods in Europe by the Austrian power-station company Donau- kraftwerke AG.
ZDF and ORF produce the film "Helnwein", directed by Peter Hajek.
The directors of Austrian Radio cancel this programme.
The readers of the Berlin magazine "Tip" vote Helnwein Artist of the Year.
His self-portrait is shown in the exhibition "Köpfe und Gesichter" (Heads and Faces) in the Darmstadt Kunsthalle.
the Adolf Grimme Prize and in the same year wins the Eduard Rhein Prize and the Golden Kader of the city of Vienna for outstanding camera work.
The office of Soviet foreign minister Gromyko tries to acquire Helnwein's portrait of Gromyko, which appeared as a "Time" cover. But the painting is already part of a collection in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.
Helnwein's self-portrait is on the cover of the Italian news magazine "L'Espresso".
Helnwein meets Walt Disney artist Carl Barks, creator of the Donald Duck legend.
Helnwein maintains that he learned more about art and life from Donald Duck than from all the schools he ever attended.
Participation in the portfolio of graphic art for the Olympic Games in Sarajevo '84 with Henry Moore, James Rosenquist, Mimmo Paladino, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and others.
Photo session with Clint Eastwood in the Stadtmuseum, Munich.
catalogue with texts by Walter Koschatzky and Peter Gorsen.
Moves to Germany and lives and works in a castle near Cologne. He radically changes his way of working and now begins a series of large-format pictures consisting of several parts (diptychs, triptychs, poliptychs).
Rudolf Hausner proposes Helnwein as his successor as head of the masterclass for painters at the Academy of Visual Arts in Vienna.
"Time" magazine commissions Robert Rauschenberg and Gottfried Helnwein to design covers with Deng Xiaoping.
"Time" magazine commissions Gottfried Helnwein to do a portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev. At this time, Brezhnev is still alive.
Gorbachev is at this point the candidate with the least chance of succeeding to the office of president.
1986 He works on a series of large-format self-portrait metamorphoses, which have their origin in the self-portrait as screaming man blinded by forks.
Start of a series of photographic self-dramatisations using the themes of dying hero, SS man, martyr, sufferer, friend of children, and mummified corpse ("Gott der Untermenschen" [God of Sub-Humans]; "Das stille Leuchten der Avantgarde" [The Silent Glow of the Avant-Garde]; "Bete Herr, denn wir sind nah!" [Pray, Lord, for We Are Near!]; "Eine Träne auf Reisen" [A Tear on a Journey]; "Der Tod des Expertentums" [The Death of Expertise]; "Partisanenliebe" [Partisan Love]; "Blitzkrieg der Liebe" [Blitzkrieg of Love]; "Geheime Elite" [Secret Elite]; "Gefäss der Leidenschaft" [Vessel of Passion].
One-man exhibition in the Leopold Hoesch Museum, Düren; in the Villa Stuck, Munich; and in the Musée d'Art Moderne in Strasbourg.
The monograph "Der Untermensch", self-portraits from 19791987 is published by Verlag Edition Braus. Texts by Heiner Müller and Peter Gorsen.
Helnwein now works simultaneously on large-format monochrome-blue realistic oil and acrylic pictures and on monochrome abstract pictures.
The Deputy Mayor of Hamburg protests against the picture.
A "German-Language Citizens' Initiative for the Protection of Human Dignity" lays charges against Helnwein and Zadek for pornography. The discussion about this picture spreads beyond the borders of the country. The Mayor of the City of Vienna, Helmut Zilk, is enthusiastic about the poster and gives Helnwein his hearty congratulations.
Participates in the exhibition "Selection 4" Polaroid Art of the last 10 years in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; and in the "photokina" in Cologne.
Set, costumes, and make-up for "Macbeth", a production of Hans Kresnik's choreographic theatre in the Stadttheater in Heidelberg. The play is given an enthusiastic reception by audience and critics and is later awarded the Theatre Prize of Berlin.
Cooperation with East German writer Heiner Müller and choreographer Hans Kresnik and dancer Ismael Ivo on a play about Antonin Artaud.
Work on the set and costumes for "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff at the Bayerische Staatsoper opera house (opening of the 1990 Munich Festival).
When Wolfgang Sawallisch, the head of the Staatsoper, sees the radical costume design, he is so shocked that he immediately cancels the contracts with Helnwein and director Hans Kresnik.
Scenery for "Sophocles' "Oedipus" at Hans Kresnik's choreographic theatre in Heidelberg. One-man exhibition "Arbeiten auf Papier" (Works on Paper) in the Kunstverein in Ludwigsburg.
Helnwein meets Norman Mailer in Provincetown, U.S.A.
Works on a series of drawings and pastels: "Modern Sleep"; "Gott als General" (God as General); "Das Wunderkind" (Child Prodigy); "Verbrannter Engel" (Burnt Angel).
"Torino Fotografia '89 Biennale Internazionale", exhibition with Clegg and Guttmann and David Hockney.
Helnwein's photographic work from 1970 to 1989 is published by Dai Nipon in Japan. Text by Toshiharu Ito.
Set and costumes for "Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats, dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade" (The Persecution and Murder of Jean Paul Marat, Performed by the Drama Group of the Hospice at Charenton under the Direction of Monsieur de Sade) by Peter Weiss, directed by Hans Kresnik at the Staatstheater in Stuttgart.
"Some facts about myself". Book project with Marlene Dietrich on Berlin after the Wall comes down: Helnwein takes photographs of the new Berlin and Marlene Dietrich writes an accompanying text. Published by Kathleen Madden.
Works on the "48 Portraits", a series of 48 monochrome red pictures of women (oil on canvas) as a counterpart to Gerhard Richter's "48 Portraits" of 1971, which depict only men in monochrome grey.
The cycle of paintings is first shown in the Galerie Koppelmann in Cologne.
Helnwein applies more and more layers of oil varnish to his realistic blue monochrome pictures till the subjects are almost indiscernible.
Group exhibition in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
"White Christmas" installation in the Leopold Hoesch Museum in Düren for the 4th International Biennale of Paper Art.
First one-man show at the Modernism Gallery in San Francisco.
One-man show at the Pfalzgalerie Museum in Kaiserslautern and at the Kunstmuseum in Thun.
"Aktion-Reaktion", exhibition of Rainer, Nitsch, Brus, and Helnwein at the Foundation Fiecht Austria, Schömer collection.
"Faces", one-man show in the Munich Stadtmuseum.
In the Ludwig Forum in Aachen the "48 Portraits" are shown in the "Künstlerportraits" exhibition.
Deutsche Fototage, Frankfurt: Group Exhibition "Ansichten von Alexandra S." (Views of Alexandra S.).
"Faces" one-man show in the Centre International Contemporain d'Art in Montreal.
One-man show in the Städtisches Museum, Schleswig.
Helnwein works on the "Fire" cycle in oil and acrylic, dark monochrome paintings with the faces of Arthur Rimbaud, Jim Morrison, Malcolm X, Mishima, Mayakovski, Rosa Luxemburg, Ulrike Meinhof and others.
Installation of a picture of a monochromic blue face of 25x16 metres (75x50 feet) in Vienna on a building in the city centre
Group exhibition in the Phoenix Museum of Art, Arizona; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio; Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois; Nexus Contemporary Arts Center, Atlanta, Georgia; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.
Peter and Irene Ludwig purchase "Child's Head" for the museum in St. Petersburg and "Dresden" for the Ludwig Museum in Beijing.
Installation of a picture of a monochromice blue face of 25 x 16 meters (75x50 feet) in Vienna on a building in the city center.
"Faces" one-man show, Houston Centre for Photography.
Work on a series of photographic pictures of people who have died a violent death; using computer techniques, he modifies them again and again, ultimately to the point of dissolution.
Set and costumes for "Pasolini" in the Schauspielhaus theatre in Hamburg; directed by Hans Kresnik.
One-man show in the Fine Arts Museum, Otaru, Japan.
Opening group show of the Ludwig Museum, Beijing.
1997 Moves with his family to Ireland.
Version by Gert Hof and Gottfried Helnwein, with Les Tambours du Bronx and Caspar Brötzmann
47th Berliner Festwochen, Arena, Berlin and Muffathalle, Munich
One-man show Modernism Gallery, San Francisco
San Francisco International Art Exhibition
"Choice", an exhibition presenting the work of young, emerging artists, choosen by leading contemporary artists, Ida Appelbrook, Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman, Gottfried Helnwein and others.
"Götter, Helden und Idole" ("Gods, Heros und Idols"), Ludwig Galerie, Schloss Oberhausen
Installation in the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
"Faces" one-man show, Kunstforum Austria, Vienna.
"Apokalypse", one man show, Installation in the Gothic Dominikaner-Church, Weinstadtmuseum, Niederösterreichisches Donaufestival, Krems, Austria
"Ghost in the Shell", Photography and the Human Soul, 1850-2000 Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Innovation / Imagination: 50 years of Polaroid Photography,Anselm Adams Center, San Francisco
"20 Years Modernism, Modern Masters and Contemporary Art", Modernism Gallery San Francisco
