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Gottfried Helnwein: I think moving to Ireland 10 years ago was a good decision. I love it when we are all at our Irish castle, family kids and dogs and other artist friends, everybody working on somethimg somewhere in the house, and when we all meet in the dining room for lunch, with Bach or Vivaldi music... it's very italian and Baroque. And I like the contrast to downtown LA where we spend the other half of the year.
Mercedes Helnwein: It would be a little claustrophobic to have no escape from L.A.
It's a very intense place, so you need to be able to get out when necessary to be able to breathe and gather some sanity.
Gottfried: I always love going back to Ireland. When we first arrived here, ten years ago, I had that feeling of being "home" for the first time in my life. I feel so connected to that land, the people and their struggle throughout history. Whenever I come back and see that green island through the window of the plane, I am deeply moved.
On the other hand it's so idyllic and peaceful to live in the midst of these bucolic landscapes, that after several months I know its time to go back to Gotham City to connect up with reality again. ...

The Team behind Waterford’s upcoming art festival are working feverishly on their events calendar for September. Heading the list of Artists is Gottfried Helnwein. Who?? He’s a world renowned artist who has decamped from his native Austria to settle in Co. Waterford. His work spans the globe from Montreal, Denver, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Columbia, Linz and St. Petersburg. ...

Waterford Fringe Festival have announced the participation of internationally acclaimed artist, Gottfried Helnwein, in this years Festival. Although born and educated in post-war Vienna, Helnwein now lives in his castle in Co Waterford. He has exhibited worldwide and is delighted with the opportunity to show his work in what he considers his home, Waterford, next September in Greyfriers Gallery as part of the Fringe Festival. ...

Former Vice-president and Managing Editor of the "San Francisco Chronicle" ...

Choreografisches Theater
Johann Kresnik wird mit Gottfried Helnwein in der kommenden Spielzeit den "Ring des Nibelungen" als Choreographisches Theater auf der Bonner Opernbühne weiterführen. Nach "Das Rheingold" und "Die Walküre" in der Spielzeit 2006/07 wird 2007/08 "Siegfried / die Götterdämmerung" als zweiter und letzter Teil folgen. ...

Gottfried Helnwein's latest exhibition, "Face It", is the artist's first show in his native Austria since 1985. A retrospective of 40 works from the 1970s to the present, it is more shocking than the Royal Academy's infamous "Sensation" of 1997. Helnwein aims to disturb not with, say, an elephant-dung Madonna, as Chris Ofili did then, but with a far more controversial Virgin. Of all his paintings, the most disturbing is Epiphany (1996), for which he dips into our collective memory of Christianity's most famous birth. This Austrian Catholic Nativity scene has no magi bearing gifts. Madonna and child are encircled by five respectful Waffen SS officers palpably in awe of the idealised, kitsch-blonde Virgin. The Christ toddler, who stands on Mary's lap, stares defiantly out of the canvas. Helnwein's baby Jesus is Adolf Hitler.
(Julia Pascal, New Statesman, UK, "Nazi Dreaming", April 10, 2006) ...

There are more Irish clients buying castles now than ever before, and, significantly, many castles are being offered on to the market by the kind of European bohemian or eccentric who once constituted the main market for such properties, and are finding their way back into Irish ownership. Years ago, castle buyers tended to be like the Vienna-born artist, Gottfried Helnwein, who bought Gurteen Castle in Tipperary back in the early 1990s, where he recently hosted celebrations for the marriage between Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese.
Now, buyers are just as likely to be construction or software millionaires. ...

In Irland habe ich begonnen, Landschaften zu malen. Eigentlich hatte ich immer nur Menschen als Thema. Aber der Ausblick von meinem Haus in Tipperary ist so unglaublich, man staunt, wie schön das ist. Man sieht nur Kühe, Berge und Schafe, kein Haus. Da habe ich gedacht: Landschaftsmaler müsste man sein! Und dann habe ich mich erinnert, dass die allerersten Bilder, die ich gemalt hatte, bevor ich auf die Akademie ging, kleine Landschaftsbilder waren, in der Nachfolge der Romantiker. Das hatte ich völlig vergessen. Die neuen Bilder habe ich inzwischen im Museum in Cork gezeigt, die Ausstellung hieß „Irish and other Landscapes“. ...

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The two celebs are reportedly going to bring in 2007 holed up in a remote Irish castle to which they travelled to recently. The Presleys will be staying at the exclusive Castle de La Poer in Co Tipperary, the home of Priscilla's pal, the reclusive Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein. ...

She and daughter Lisa Marie are staying at a Castle in Co Tipperary. Lisa Marie, who was briefly married to fallen pop king Michael Jackson, was at weird rocker Marilyn Manson’s wedding there last year. She and Priscilla, -who wed the King when still a teenager- arrived on Thursday.
The Presleys' host will be the reclusive Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein. Priscilla and Gottfried are rumoured to have become good pals due to her love of his unusual art ...

Dita Von Teese: "Bespoke - whether it's jewellery design or putting together a party - is like, 'Wow.' I love the way the Regency and Victorian era really knew how to party. There was so much attention to detail. People have become lazy about entertaining. It’s all done to a formula.” Her dream theme is a Marie Antoinette banquet. "I love centrepieces dripping with flowers, berries and fruit. In those days, people would eat the table arrangements, and 1 love that irreverence. Marilyn and Dita were such fun to work with - they let me frame their cheesy childhood photos and put them on the walls of the castle in Tipperary. ...

"Wir leben beide in Irland..." ...

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Mercedes is the daughter of iconic 70s painter & all-round visual artist Gottried Helnwein. Meeting the child of a personal hero can often be an uncomfortable experience, doubly so when the progeny have embarked on a similiar career path. Mercedes has nothing to fear in any comparison. While her father's work is often provocative, hers has a warm intimacy and youthful vibrancy that shows a stunning technique to good effect. R & I were suitably impressed as we read her long list of accomplishments so you can expect some Mercedes Helnwein originals to appear in Manifesto in the near future. It's so exciting to be opening Manifesto. I'll keep readers up to date with happenings but provisionally, we're hoping to open at the start of November. I can't wait! ...

The child as a symbol of hope, purity and innocence triggers a protective reflex that taps into society's instinct to cherish and protect its young. Any tarnishing of this ideal is naturally going to provoke controversy, with art, literature and advertising strewn with instances of iconoclasts who have upset the moral applecart. (Henry James' novel The Turn of the Screw, the sinister paintings of Balthus, or the candid photographs by Sally Mann, are all examples.) It is within such company that Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein rests, as his controversial works cause people to sit up and take notice whenever he exhibits. Certainly, shocking images of deformed babies, Nazi ephemera and pseudo-religious overtones are not for the faint-hearted. However, the majority of the portrait paintings on show in the current exhibition at the Fenton are perhaps more palatable for the general viewer, as the imagery is comparatively sedate in terms of narrative and symbolism. ...

WITH his bandanna and long dark hair, wearing something that looks like a flak jacket, swarthy Gottfried Helnwein could be a guerrilla or a pirate-revolutionary.
But the rock 'n' roll lifestyle and 17th-Century castle in Co Tipperary adorned with huge canvases tell a different story. He's an artist of serious international reputation, veteran of many controversies, who counts Sean Penn, Marilyn Manson, Norman Mailer and, once, Marlene Dietrich among his friends. ...

With her reddened lips slightly ajar and her eyes gently shut, this little girl could either be in serene repose or even, with her ghostly pallor, dead. Considering the artist who has created this hauntingly compelling image, it's possibly the latter. Gottfried Helnwein, the man in question, has always danced along that fine line of controversy. ...