Helhesten

{{Infobox magazine

| logo =

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| editor = Robert Dahlmann

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| category = Arts magazine

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| founder = {{ubl|Asger Jorn|Robert Dahlmann}}

| founded = 1941

| firstdate = April 1941

| finaldate = November 1944

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| country = Denmark

| based = Copenhagen

| language = Danish

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| oclc = 154002703

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Helhesten ({{langx|da|The Hell-Horse}}) was an arts and literary magazine which was published between 1941 and 1944 in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was one of the leading publications during World War II in the region. Its title was a reference to a figure in the Norse mythology.

History and profile

Helhesten was first published in Copenhagen in April 1941 during the Nazi occupation of the city.{{cite thesis|author=Kerry Greaves|title=Mobilizing the collective: Helhesten and the Danish avant-garde, 1934-1946|location=City University of New York|degree=PhD|isbn=978-1-321-49966-7|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1651529564|year=2015|id={{ProQuest|1651529564}}}} The magazine was inspired from two former Danish magazines, Klingen and Linien. The founders of Helhesten were Asger Jorn, a painter, and Robert Dahlmann, an architect.{{cite book|author=Karen Kurczynski

|editor=Benedikt Hjartarson|display-editors=et. al.|title=A Cultural History of the Avant- Garde in the Nordic Countries 1925-1950|year=2019

|publisher=Brill Rodopi|location=Leiden; Boston|isbn=978-90-04-38829-1|page=162|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kf-GDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA162|chapter=Asger Jorn and Cobra – A Many Headed Beast}} They were part of the Danish Harvest group.{{cite thesis|author=Philip Hawkins|title=An Enquiry into Fully Lived Moments|url=https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/handle/10026.1/2651|hdl=10026.1/2651

|location=University of Plymouth|pages=7,18,82|degree=PhD|year=2006}} Robert Dahlmann also edited the magazine.{{cite journal|author=Kerry Greaves|page=51|title=Hell-Horse: Radical Art and Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Denmark|doi=10.1093/oxartj/kct043

|journal=Oxford Art Journal|date=March 2014|volume=37|issue=1}}

The magazine adopted an avant-garde approach and opposed the Nazi propaganda. Its main contributors who were supporters of German expressionism, dada and surrealism included Ejler Bille, Henry Heerup, Egill Jacobsen and Carl-Henning Pedersen. They were also interested in the art of the banal.{{cite journal|author=Nathalie Aubert

|s2cid=142598369}} It mostly featured articles on art theory, non-Western work, literature, poetry, film, architecture, and photography in addition to the reviews of art exhibitions and biographies of Danish artists. Asger Jorn's translation of the work by Franz Kafka was serialized in Helhesten which was the first translation of Kafka into Danish. The magazine produced a total of nine issues before its closure in November 1944.{{cite journal|author1=Asger Jorn|author2=Niels Henriksen|title=The Human Animal|journal=October|date=Summer 2012|volume=141|pages=53–58|jstor=41684276

|doi=10.1162/OCTO_a_00097|s2cid=57570042}} The reason for its closure was the financial problems. It was succeeded by another magazine entitled Cobra.