Gottfried Helnwein: The celebrated artist and his loud silence on Scientology
Over the years, we’ve told you about Gottfried Helnwein, the Austrian artist who is most well known in this country for iconic album covers with their gritty style. But he’s most interesting to us for his Scientology involvement, which has come up numerous times over the years. Austrian journalist Peter Reichelt has spent the most time investigating Helnwein, and he let us know he had a new piece about the artist in the publication STANDARD there. With his generous approval, we’re excerpting some of that story here, which he wrote with journalists Olga Kronsteiner and Fabian Schmid.
Gottfried Helnwein is one of Austria’s most prominent artists, and he is courted accordingly in that country — by museum managers, the art trade, and also by prominent government figures. The artist often met former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, for example, and one of those meetings occurred in 2018, the first time that Helnwein was featured on the wrapping of the Ringturm, a prominent insurance building in Vienna that turns over its entire facade to a single artist.
In the meantime, the idea of his own museum has come up, he explained in a recent magazine interview. Years ago, the then governor of Lower Austria, Erwin Pröll, offered him such a museum, and recently former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz is also said to have expressed this wish. “Who knows what the future holds,” remarked the artist, who commutes between Ireland and Florida.
Helnwein, who celebrated his 75th birthday on October 8, has long been celebrated by Klaus Albrecht Schröder, director of Vienna’s Albertina museum. Beginning in late October, the museum launched its second major Helnwein retrospective in ten years (“Reality and Fiction”), and the artist is a frequent guest at the museum’s YouTube channel, where he lectures on works of classical modernism.
Helnwein is rarely at a loss for words, especially when it comes to the dangers of political correctness or the increasing commercial orientation of art. Or about Donald Trump, who will win the US presidential election in 2024 “or the elections were massively rigged,” Helnwein explained in the magazine profile.
What the artist is not prepared to talk about publicly, however, are his links to Scientology, which he has vehemently denied in the past. Documents, however, suggest that Helnwein became a member of this controversial organization in 1972. Four years later, he founded Austria’s “Celebrity Centre” in Vienna, which was called “Center for Art and Communication.” More recently, Helnwein was featured in a documentary (Gottfried Helnwein and the Dreaming Child, 2011) on Scientology TV, the channel premiered by church boss David Miscavige in 2018.
In 2019, Helnwein attended Scientology’s L. Ron Hubbard birthday event in Clearwater, Florida, and the year before had also attended the annual “Patrons Ball” at Scientology’s UK headquarters in East Grinstead, England. Such events are reserved for members only.
When asked about his membership, Helnwein answered evasively. “I have defended myself against such accusations in the past by filing a constitutional complaint with the German Federal Constitutional Court,” the artist responded. As for the constitutional complaint, the court ruled in 1999 that Helnwein’s personal rights had been violated. However, this involved a series of allegations. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court found that Helnwein was a Scientologist, at least for a time.
Helnwein did not respond to a long list of follow-up questions – for example about his appearances at the Scientology galas.
This is the only known existing photo of Helnwein with Arthur Hubbard (b.1958), the youngest child of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Arthur studied under Helnwein and lived more than a year in the Helnwein Castle in Burgbrohl, Germany.
Arthur told the authors that he was sent directly from the Scientology’s RPF camp “Happy Valley” to Helnwein to work and live there. Arthur gave Peter Reichelt the coordinates where he could find the secret prison camp where he was imprisoned for many months. He was sent to this prison camp twice in the 80s and 90s.
In the US, Scientology is a tax-exempt religious organization. In Europe, experts and some security authorities classify the organization as anti-democratic. It undermines fundamental and human rights, suppresses freedom of expression and strives for a totalitarian system of rule, as German constitutional protectors emphasize.
Helnwein, meanwhile, is campaigning in Austria for an end to violence against women and girls, specifically as part of the UN campaign “Orange the World,” supported by UN Women Austria, for which he created large-format posters that adorned the Vienna opera house and the Schauspielhaus in Graz in 2021. The subjects were also on display at the “Weltmuseum” in Vienna. In the summer of 2022, they were cut up, made into small pictures and bags and signed by Helnwein. The proceeds from the sale of around 10,000 Euros were donated to women’s aid organizations, according to the museum.
The artist, who was born in Vienna in 1948, is known for his hyper-realistic art, characterized by his exploration of the themes of pain, injury and violence, with “the figure of the vulnerable and defenceless child” serving as his central motif, according to the Albertina’s website.
Peter Reichelt, co-author of this article, first documented Helnwein’s extensive Scientology connections back in 1997 in his book “Helnwein and Scientology – An organisation and its secret service.” When he filmed a report on Helnwein for German TV ARD in March 2000, Reichelt had also planned an interview with the artist, with whom he had previously had professional dealings. During filming, however, a Scientology member stormed out of the Helnwein villa in Clearwater and attacked the TV team with a hammer.
When Helnwein turned 70 in 2018, a party was organized by the Albertina. Guests included not only well-known Helnwein collectors such as Christian Baha and his wife Steffi Graf, but also a number of Scientology members, some of them high-ranking. The latter included portrait artist Robert Schöller, for example.
The STANDARD was unable to clarify why Helnwein, despite his many years of membership, refused to admit to being a Scientologist. In an email to the authors of the article, the artist’s wife Renate Helnwein complained about the research. Her husband had “never received any financial benefit” from any institution or public body in Austria, and he had not even been able to “claim the donation to the Albertina for tax purposes…as he has his main residence in Ireland.”
“It is obvious that you are going to write a hate article and want to harm my husband,” Renate complained.
At the October 24 retrospective opening at the Albertina, Helnwein was embraced by Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer. The artist is still considered a treasure in Austria.
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So an 'avant garde' artist doesn't want to be labeled a $cientologist? Hiding your light under a bushel Gottfried? Sorry, that is a Christian song. What song is most appropriate for a $cientologist?? Windspliter and Thank You for Listening are just too bad to use for anything. Saturday Night Live's Neurontology skit fits that bill.
Anyone outside of the 'cleb' bubble would be under heavy 'ethics' trouble for not publicly kissing the Masters ring. But then, $cieno clebs don't have to obey any rules. Rules are for plebeians.
know Gottfried Helnwein through two of his children. My son Collin was briefly connected to Mercedes and Ali and their friend art photographer Alex Praeger. They are all scientologists. At the time all up and coming hot celebrity artists. Mercedes is a painter and Ali is a musician and film composer and Alex a photographer. All treated as celebrities by Celebrity Centre.
One thing that sticks out to me is the mysterious death of Bryten Goss a young artist, son of Rose and Ed Goss prominent Scientology OT VIIIs. Bryten was a rising star studying under Gottfried in Ireland when he contracted pneumonia and died. The circumstances of why he died so rapidly were never revealed.
The connection to Gottfried was never explored.
Gottfried is treated as a Celebrity by Scientology and his art is not understood by most scientologists or staff.
IMO he is a somewhat skillful representational artist derivative of the truly famous artist Francis Bacon. He shocked the art world in the 80s-90’s with paintings of his children in various poses covered in blood. My spouse who is a fine artist with numerous museum and gallery credits considers Gottfried distasteful for using his children as subjects to create kiddie porn violence.
I find Helnwein typical of the elite attitude of scientologists who have achieved some acknowledgment of their work. The message in his paintings in my mind represents the true result of Scientology; exploitation of children and violence toward scientology whistleblowers.
There are few accomplished artists in Scientology. Why is that?
Scientology kills creativity with its brainwashing and repressive rules. Art does not thrive under that cloud unless it’s like the art of Gottfried Helnwein.