TopicsHelnwein

My mom had originally thought about living in Ireland - we would go to Ireland a lot when we were younger. My Mom was friends with Austrian-Irish artist Gottfried Helnwein, and we 'd stay at his castle, Castle Gurteen de La Poer, in Kilsheelan, a few miles east of Clonmel. We'd all go to the local pubs and dance to the music, and then when closing time came, we'd head back to Gurteen and run around the castle grounds, or climb a spiral tower to the top and lay under the stars, me drunk at seventeen, until the sun peered through the crenellations. (Riley Keough)

Whether hanging with the Stones, zooming in on Warhol or making sure Dietrich wasn’t completely alone, Gottfried Helnwein has always ended up making great art. Stuart Clark tracks him down to his Waterford castle where Nazi Germany, Israel, Lou Reed, Marilyn Mansion, cancel culture, Donald Duck and Elvis are also up for discussion.

Tommy Tiernan welcomes mystery guests and interviews them without any preparation or knowledge of who will be joining him until they meet in studio.

Austrian-born artist Gottfried Helnwein talks to Dónal Lynch about how his country's dark past led to his career, his life in a Tipperary castle, the magic of Irish pub culture and befriending Marlene Dietrich.

Wolfram Kons, der ntv-Kunstexperte ist, besucht den Weltstar des Hyperrealismus Gottfried Helnwein auf seinem Bilderbuch-Schloss in Tipperary, Irland. Helnwein ist einer der bekanntesten, aber auch umstrittensten deutschsprachigen Künstler der Gegenwart. Die Doku wird am Samstag, den 28. November um 9.30 Uhr und am Sonntag, den 29. November um 14.05 Uhr bei ntv wiederholt.

The most complete monograph realized about the Austrian painter, photographer, filmmaker, performer and set designer, born in Vienna in 1948. The works of Helnwein show the bare truth where society instead hides and removes. What emerges by leafing through the pages of this monograph is the obsession that accompanies the artistic career of this notable Austrian artist, marked by the wish to breakdown the rhetoric of war, the constructions of self-absolution, the mystifications of religious institutions in whose pitfalls men periodically fall as if they had not committed the same mistake over and over again.

Trump ist wirklich ein erstaunliches Phänomen. Es gibt keine Person, die weltweit so massiv bekämpft wird, wie er. Das Ganze artet mittlerweile zu einer totalen Massenhysterie aus. Alle tun so, als wäre die Welt bisher ganz in Ordnung gewesen, und als wäre erst mit Trump das Böse in die Welt gekommen. Ich frage dann gerne meine amerikanischen Freunde, wo wart Ihr denn die letzten Jahre? Als Bush Afghanistan und den Irak verwüstet und Millionen Tote hinterlassen hat? Als Cheney ganz offiziell die Folter wieder eingeführt hat. Wo wart Ihr, als der Friedensnobelpreisträger Obama mit seinem Drohnenprogramm Tausende, darunter viele Kinder töten ließ? Trump ist eigentlich so etwas wie ein Augenblick der Wahrheit. Er ist der amerikanischeste Präsident dieses Jahrhunderts, er ist der Präsident den dieses Land verdient hat. Er ist ein Spiegel in dem die Amerikaner sich selbst und den Zustand ihres Landes erkennen können. Er ist nicht das Problem, nur das Symptom.

Brexit-Krise in Großbritannien - und der EU-Ratsvorsitzende Sebastian Kurz mittendrin. Der Kanzler hatte als erste Reise in seiner neuen EU-Funktion einen Besuch in Irland und Großbritannien angesetzt, um sich über die brisante Lage zu informieren. Er wurde von der Überlebenskrise der Regierung von Theresa May eingeholt - zwei Minister-Rücktritte am Montag, der Sturz der Regierungschefin scheint nicht ausgeschlossen.

The daughter of Gottfried Helnwein - a remarkable, often controversial force within the art world - and is now an established artist in her own right.

Der Aufstand der Jugend in den Sechzigern war eine historische Notwendigkeit. Die Generation unserer Eltern und Großeltern waren durch zwei Weltkriege und das Nazi-Regime beschädigt. Sie waren für den Holocaust verantwortlich. Und danach hatte viele ehemalige Kriegsverbrecher wichtige Ämter und Positionen in der Regierung oder waren in öffentlichen Institutionen beschäftigt. Der ehemalige SS-Mann und Massenmörder Friedrich Peter war Chef der Freiheitlichen. Oder Heinrich Gross, der in der NS-Zeit 800 Kinder ermordet hatte, war der meistbeauftragte Gerichtspsychiater Österreichs (der KURIER berichtete). Dementsprechend war auch das Klima in der Bevölkerung.

AN innocent child caught up in war is the peculiarly appropriate focus of a work by the artist Gottfried Helnwein entitled The Disasters of War which comes up at Sotheby’s Irish art sale in London on September 13. The painting is not about Syria, it is about humankind.

Essentially a hyperrealist artist of quite extraordinary facility, Gottfried Helnwein's huge Photorealist canvases are awash with references to religious Renaissance paintings, the dark allure of Nazi imagery and his background in the ruins of post war Vienna. His strategy is often of deliberate shock and provocation, from his earliest extreme watercolors of doll-like, wounded children with their hare-lips and facial disfigurements, which prompted cartoonist Robert Crumb to call him "a very fine artist and one sick mother---er."

The events feature leading artists of the 20th century including Sir John Lavery, Sir William Orpen, Jack Butler Yeats, Walter Osborne, Paul Henry, Roderic O’Conor, along with Louis le Brocquy, who died in 2012. In an innovative move, there is also a selection of works by contemporary Irish artists...Among contemporary works on offer is Gottfried Helnwein's photorealistic oil-and-acrylic-on-canvas work “The Murmur of the Innocents 45,”

February rains flooded the gravel road to Gurteen Castle, a 40-room fortress built in 1866 for Pope Pius IX’s chamberlain. Throughout the Republic of Ireland, stories about power outages dominated the evening news, but the Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein and his wife, Renate, their four children and three of their grandchildren were oblivious to the storm. Gottfried, in a skull-print bandanna and black sunglasses, spoke about the spirit of a jealous woman who tormented the burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese on her wedding day (she married Gottfried’s friend Marilyn Manson there in 2005 in a ceremony officiated by the surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky). Von Teese was nearly ready to walk down the aisle when the ceiling above her vanity came crashing down, narrowly missing her and her maid of honor.

Sender von Red-Bull-Chef Mateschitz startet am Donnerstag "möglichst emotionales" "Close Up" auf Kulturschaffende

"Als ich in den 1990er Jahren nach Irland kam, war es das freieste Land der westlichen Welt. Es gab nicht einmal den Ansatz irgendeinereiner Bürokratie. Es existierten überhaupt keine Formulare, die man hätte ausfüllen können, man konnte ohne Führerschein Autofahren und Künstler waren von der Steuer befreit. Ich hatte 10 Jahre lang keinen einzigen Polizisten gesehen, ich war mir gar nicht sicher, ob es soetwas hier überhaupt gibt. Das war mein Land. Ich komme nämlich sehr gut ohne Bevormundung, Überwachung und Kontrolle irgendwelcher Behörden zurecht. Die EU hat aber in den letzten Jahren dafür gesorgt, dass die Party hier vorbei ist und einige Banker haben das Land vor kurzem auch noch bankrott gemacht. Sonst ist es aber immer noch gemütlich hier."

In a nod to Masterson's Irish heritage, the couple had a formal wedding at a private castle, the picturesque setting of Tipperary serving as their backdrop, during a weeklong celebration. The groom’s brother Chris Masterson served as best man and guests included actors Ben Foster, Mike Pena and Ethan Suplee and acclaimed artist Gottfried Helnwein.

2001 - Gottfried Helnwein at Kilkenny Arts Festival

“All a poet can do today is warn”, World War 1 soldier poet, Wilfred Owen, wrote in a draft Preface for a book of anti-war poems he would never see published. He was killed on the eve of Armistice Day 1918. World War One, The Great War, The War to End All Wars . . . within twenty summers, Europe was engulfed again in the even greater catastrophies of the fascist era. The work of Gottfried Helnwein has its genesis in these years. They obsess him as a creative artist. As a kind of guardian angel, he grapples with them on our behalf. That such a nightmare would never visit us again. Or our children. Or our children’s children. Or “. . .all those still to come”.

It’s a foggy, cloud-streaked afternoon in Waterford County, Ireland. I’m meeting a man who has spent a large part of his life on this island that is famously steeped in tradition. He’s called this place home for some while. Ireland has a long history of treating its artists, literary figures and musicians well.

Again and again, he has painted children in brutal, violent settings. He has used Chris­tian iconography to depict Nazi officers, and juxtaposed rampaging soldiers with Images of childhood innocence. Visceral reactions come with the territory: one Installation in Cologne was physically attacked by neo Nazis. And yet, he says, he does not set out to shock. "Shock is a useless effect," he says. "Somebody in shock is completely useless. I want to make somebody think." Instead, Helnwein's work speaks of a deep psychological need for meaning, even as it takes the form of violence and confrontation. Such an approach is rooted in the uneasy silences of growing up in post-war Austria and the shattered illusions of his early adult life, yet is still infused with an uneasy ideal­ism. His art has brought him material rewards. Over the past 30 years, he has become an art superstar. His paintings and photographs command large prices. As he talks in his Co Tipperary castle, garbed in black clothes and dark glasses, Helnwein has the air of a vet­eran rock star and the lifestyle to match it. The Sunday Times, Gerry McCarthy

Louis le Brocquy, Sean Scully, Tony O'Malley, Hughie O'Donoghue, Gottfried Helnwein, Basil Blackshaw, Dorothy Cross, William Crozier, Mary FitzGerald, Martin Gale, Elizabeth Magill, Janet Mullarney, Paul Nugent, Linda Quinlan.

The exhibition includes works by: Basil Blackshaw, Dorothy Cross, William Crozier, Mary FitzGerald, Martin Gale, Gottfried Helnwein, Elizabeth Magill, Janet Mullarney, Paul Nugent, Hughie O’Donoghue, Linda Quinlan.

The bride wore a flowing purple Vivienne Westwood number over her trademark cinched corset. Manson was his normal sepulchral white self, with black make-up and lipstick as they exchanged vows by candlelight in Ireland, at Gothic Castle Gurteen Le Poer in Kilsheelan, Co Tipperary. A designer-fest costing an estimated $500,000, the bride wore Christian Louboutin shoes to trip up the aisle while the groom wore a John Galliano black-silk taffeta tux. They exchanged their vows at midnight in the home of their artist friend Gottfried Helnwein and the invited guest list was studded with showbiz royalty, including Madonna, Keanu Reeves, David Lynch, Lisa Marie Presley, and Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne.

Again and again, he has painted children in brutal, violent settings. He has used Chris­tian iconography to depict Nazi officers, and juxtaposed rampaging soldiers with Images of childhood innocence. Visceral reactions come with the territory: one Installation in Cologne was physically attacked by neo Nazis. And yet, he says, he does not set out to shock. "Shock is a useless effect," he says. "Somebody in shock is completely useless. I want to make somebody think." Instead, Helnwein's work speaks of a deep psychological need for meaning, even as it takes the form of violence and confrontation. Such an approach is rooted in the uneasy silences of growing up in post-war Austria and the shattered illusions of his early adult life, yet is still infused with an uneasy ideal­ism. His art has brought him material rewards. Over the past 30 years, he has become an art superstar. His paintings and photographs command large prices. As he talks in his Co Tipperary castle, garbed in black clothes and dark glasses, Helnwein has the air of a vet­eran rock star and the lifestyle to match it.

“For me, the reaction so far in Waterford is very good because people are talking about the theme of war and exploitation. For a child to grow up now, it’s the toughest time ever because children are flooded with violence in the media and internet and computer games where the only thing to do is kill people and they are very graphic. Entertainment is very violent but as long as it’s entertainment, it’s fine, but as soon as you do it as art, people get very sensitive. In my art I’m only reflecting the world and I wanted to raise awareness and make people think.”

Exhibition Catalogue

Gottfried Helnwein's classic yet unnerving images transform sentimental representations of childhood into portraits of individual subjects frozen at the moment of suffering. His photo-paintings pirouette on the fine line between chocolate box pictures/excessive sentimentality and the cost to children of being treated as commodities, of suffering emotional or physical pain at a grown-up's hands. High pictorial and technical values create compositions that recall contemporary cinema and seventeenth-century painting, expanding the treatment of time into epic. This apparent grandiosity plays against the immediacy of each suffering subject, underlining the different experience of time in childhood. Small hurts can devastate when you're a child. Big hurts stay with you for years, as survivors of Hitler's Anschluss testify. Now, in the age of virtual use and abuse of children, Helnwein's insistence on valuing the humanity and charm of the littlest, the least powerful, offers a counterpoint to claims that suffering counts most when you're grown-up. It opens his practice into a series of pictorial mise-en-scènes, as did Rembrandt's tableaux in The Blinding of Samson (1636) or The Night Watch (1642).

Publication Date: February 12, 2008

Konsequent und virtuos. Technische Meisterschaft und auch die Konsequenz einer packenden sozialkritischen Thematik offenbaren sich in dieser Ausstellung: Gewalt, Schmerz, Verletzung werden dargestellt. Den Körper ebenso wie die Psyche betreffend. Helnwein dokumentiert hier in Linz einen künstlerischen Reifegrad, der eine weitere Steigerung kaum vorstellbar macht. Seine Eingriffe sind von einer schmerzhaften Unmittelbarkeit, deren emotionale Energie weit über die großen Bildformate hinaus den Raum und sein Publikum ergreift. (Irene Judmayer - Oberösterreichische Nachrichten)

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.

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..."

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.

Nicht nur einheimische Stars wie U2 haben vom weltweit einmaligen Modell profitiert. Auch kreative Ausländer wie Michel Houellebecq oder Gottfried Helnwein suchten Unterschlupf auf einer Insel, die nicht nur der Seele, sondern auch dem Konto gut tut.

The nuptials of schock rocker Marilyn Manson and burlesque queen Dita Von Teese were never going to be conventional, but as Hamish Bowles discovered as he tracked the celebrations from Los Angeles to Tipperary, they were also filled with high drama and high style. ... The following afternoon our cars are trundling through the darkening landscape to Helnwein's baronial castle, a forbidding Hammer House of Horror edifice complete with turrets, crenellations, and a lone bagpiper.

DVT: I'm in London. Manson and I got married last weekend in Ireland. Our friend, the artist Gottfried Helnwein, has a castle there, which is where we had the wedding. SP: [laughs] Did you have fun? Was it great? DVT: I had the time of my life. I think we both did. SP: What did you wear? DVT: I wore a giant purple silk-and-grosgrain taffeta dress by Vivienne Westwood and a Mr. Pearl corset. I also wore a little tricorn hat from Stephen Jones. I didn't want a white wedding or a Gothic wedding. It was somewhere in between-just beautiful, rich colors everywhere.

The String Quartet No.1 in E Minor starts like a windswept landscape – overcast and abandoned. A strong current of all four instruments introduces the theme with an unexpected immediacy and pulls you into a story of which you are about to be the author. From the headstrong first movement you’ll soon be dropped into five minutes and thirty-four seconds of someone’s bleeding heart – the second movement. Starting with a minimalistic plucking that sounds like the last raindrops of a storm, the music gracefully gives way to the slow and lulling depths of the cello. By the way, you’d be surprised how something that sounds like velvet can cut like a razor. But whatever dreams you might have lost yourself in, the third movement will wake you up.

bought a bow tie and a dress shirt at heathrow: a bit of last minute shopping for a black tie occasion. flew to shannon, in ireland and landed in heavy rain. picked up a disgusting light blue nissan primera from the rental desk. the woman behind the counter said, 'the car we are giving you is brand new'. i thought to reply, 'thankyou i will enjoy thrashing it into submission'. waiting outside the castle were papanazis and a few fans braving the cold (tipperary FM had given them the tip) but all were kept away by heavy security at one end of a long, torchlit drive. there was a lone (bag)piper playing outside to welcome us. helnwein's castle is amazing: tastefully decorated with antiques and pieces of his work on walls mixed with old masters' paintings. the castle had been dressed with dark red roses everywhere.

The multi-day event — held at de La Poer Castle, County Tipperary, Ireland, home of the couple's friend, controversial Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein — included a non-denominational ceremony performed by Chilean underground film director (and Manson friend) Alejandro Jodorowsky, and the bride and groom exchanged personal vows. Manson and Jodorowsky, who directed "Santa Sangre," had been working together on a movie called "Abelcain," a project that has been suspended for the time being.

Shock-rocker Marilyn Manson tied the knot with his burlesque bride Dita Von Teese in a secret ceremony in Tipperary last night. The couple exchanged vows after dark at a private ceremony in the home of their artist friend Gottfried Helnwein. The stately Irish castle where Helnwein lives with his family was transformed into a gothic fortress as pals including Lisa Marie Presley, Johnny Depp, Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie arrived for the event. As darkness fell, former stripper Dita, 32, walked through the gothic arches of the castle's Great Hall to the sound of a harp - dressed in a stunning gown designed by Vivienne Westwood and corset expert Mr. Pearl.

On December 3, 2005, Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese were married in a private, non-denominational ceremony at Helnwein's castle. The wedding was officiated by surrealist film director and comic book writer Alejandro Jodorowsky, Gottfried Helnwein was best man. They exchanged vows in front of approximately 60 guests, including Lisa Marie Presley.

Ah oui tiens en passant, je cherchait des images sur google et je tombe sur un site d'un artiste Autrichien Gottfried Helnwein , Absolument génial, et je me dit que Vlao va pouvoir critiquer autre chose que l'art de clément mdr....

...oder auf die Serie "Irische Landschaften", die, im extremen Querformat auf richtersche Art gemalt, dem gegenwärtigen Wohnsitz des Künstlers Reverenz erweist - mittels elegischer schafreicher, aber menschenleerer Panoramen. Hier ist einmal übermäßig offensichtlich, was Gerhard Richter als bestimmenden Einfluß auf seine eigenen Bilder stets behauptet hat: das Vorbild der Romantik.

"Ireland is in possession of a sanity that is more potent than most places. Everything that is so painstakingly important in other places seems to brake there, and you’re left more or less with just yourself. And although you might feel slightly naked for the first few hours or days, wanting to know where to put your hands, what to worry about, whom to exchange arrogant glances with, you can’t really help but feel some kind of massive, benevolent relief." -Mercedes Helnwein.

Die Freunde der "Nil-Gesellschaft" treffen sich im Helnwein Schloss in Irland: Alfred Biolek, Alice Schwarzer, Antje Vollmer, Renate Gruber, Bettina Flittner, Gottfried, Renate, Amadeus, Cyril und Kojii Helnwein...

Nun findet sich die Antwort auf die Frage nach dem Verbleib Gottfried Helnweins in massiven Schlagzeilen der “New York Times” und der “Los Angeles Times”. “Ein Aufstand der Farben, exzentrisch, anachronistisch, wundersam”, jubeln die Kalifornier. Die Kollegen von der Ostküste schreiben von “ausserirdischer Faszination und wilder Extravaganz”. Gottfried Helnwein hat an der von Placido Domingo geleiteten Oper von Los Angeles den “Rosenkavalier” von Richard Strauss ausgestattet. Maximilian Schell inszenierte, Kent Nagano dirigierte, und die Premiere zu Wochenbeginn geriet dem alten Fuchs Domingo zum Clou der amerikanischen Opernsaison. Schon in den Überschriften aber wird klargestellt, wer hier der Chef war: Gottfried Helnwein nämlich, geboren in Wien als Sohn eines Postbeamten, Konzeptkünstler, Fotograf, Filmer, unvergleichlich resistent gegen Katalogisierungen.

Tipperary is set to host rock wedding of the year later on this month. The eccentric Marylin Manson will tie the knot in the County after his close friend, artist Gottfried Helnwein offered him the use of his Tipperary castle.

One man show ‘Helnwein in Tipperary’ is an exhibition of large-scale landscape painting by Austrian-born Artist Gottfried Helnwein in the South Tipperary Arts Centre, Nelson Street, Clonmel. The exhibition opens Friday, 26th November and runs until Saturday, December 18th. Internationally respected, Gottfried Helnwein spends much of the year in his home and studio in Ireland. The exhibition at the Arts Centre features three large scale landscapes around Tipperary including the Nire Valley and Tullamaine. The public is welcome to the official opening at 8 p.m. on Friday night which will be performed by Senator Martin Mansergh.

"I think we should be in no doubt that we are in the presence of the work of an artist of exceptional stature. Exhibitions of his work have been shown all over the world. He is based in Ireland and in Los Angeles, retaining close contact of course with his Austrian homeland and the German-speaking world. He was recently granted Irish citizenship."

The recent landscape show by Gottfried Helnwein at the Crawford Gallery in Cork contained a homage to Friedrich’s The Wreck of the Hope, while the current Walker & Walker exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy features a three-dimensional recreation of his work Wanderer in the Mist. Because it is a show culled from the extensive collection of Berlin’s Nationalgalerie, A German Dream does not include these two key works, both of which are in Hamburg’s Kunsthalle, but the six works that are included still offer a tantalising taster. They point the way to understanding Friedrich’s iconic idealism and energy, but what they highlight even more pointedly is the need for a comprehensive retrospective of the artist’s work.

Marilyn Manson: "Gottfried Helnwein whom I collaborated with a lot invited us to get married at one of his castles in either Germany or Ireland," Manson said. "So we thought we would just have the pageantry and the ceremony of a normal wedding, but without the church. Because I don't think that I would really be welcome there."

This exhibition by internationally renowned artist Gottfried Helnwein continues in the Crawford Art Gallery until September 4 th next. Helnwein bases himself between Co. Tipperary and Los Angeles and is exhibiting a number of large scale photorealist canvases depicting landscape. Perhaps more recognized as a painter of highly emotive portraits, this exhibition will reveal the influence of landscape throughout his career from the early Vienna cityscapes to the present series of Irish landscapes and recognizes the impact which the German romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) has had on Helnwein’s work. Born in Vienna in 1948, he is a formidable artist and his work has often been seen as controversial because it functions as moral probes.

...these photo-paintings appear even more real than a photograph: they are hyper-real, super-saturated depictions of the world that surrounds us, as we would like to see it. Helnwein’s landscapes offer us the world as we see it in our mind’s eye, our memories. What is certain is that with these works Helnwein has raised the bar for artists to come with art that is groundbreaking in terms of scale, skill and vision. Painted mountains, fields and sky can never be the same again. ...

Visitors to Gottfried Helnwein's show of panoramic landscapes at the Crawford Municipial Gallery in Cork are having trouble deceiding either they are looking at paintings or photographs. Some are up to seven metres in length, by two metres wide: a breathtaking, epic scale. They are extraordinarily beautiful, by any standards, and, yes, they are paintings. The finish may be photorealist, but these are not direct transcriptions of what the camera lens sees; they are edited and informed by the artist's eye. Take a close look at Irish Landscape III (Nire Valley) or Irish Landscape IV (County Waterford). Nor do they represent what the naked eye can see. American Landscape (Death Valley) is so wide that it has an almost vertiginous effect. Dawn Williams who curated this show has done a superb job.

A SPECTACULAR Exhibition which includes Irish Landscapes by an internationally renowned Austrian Artist is causing a stir at the Crawford Municipial Art Gallery in Cork.

...the work is extremely ambitious, both in terms of scale and rendering - some paintings are seven metres long and all are so realistic that they are nearly indistinguishable from photographs. Consequently they cannot fail but to strike a chord, as you marvel at the skill involved in creating such vivid and realistic landscape views. So much so that Fáilte Ireland is surely gaining free advertising, as many will be inspired to venture out and experience these places first hand. Helnwein re-creates theses vistas using a composite of photographic sources which cram multiple focal points into a single view. The surfaces are absolutely flawless with practically no evidence of the artist's brushwork. Studying the surface is absorbing, as the viewer is immersed in the detail as much as seductive wider views of the vast, undulating topography.

Almost 'autobiographical landscapes', the paintings in this exhibition by Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein broadly outline the migrations he, and his family, have made from his native Vienna, through Germany, to America and Ireland, his family home since 1997. Yet these landscapes also mark a return to his earliest artistic inspiration. Helnwein's meticulous Irish landscapes are unashamedly aesthetic and the typically epic, but not inhuman scale, imitates the subject matter with each painting seeming to breathe a sense of a year well advanced, after the effusive growth and floral displays of May. Sunset beckons here and with it, Romanticism.

From 3 July to 4 September Gottfried Helnwein exhibits some of his large photo-realist landscapes. These really are BIG paintings, with some of the canvases reaching seven metres in length. So what, you may yawn, but the work has to be seen to be believed. Helnwein specialises in the classic, dramatic sublime and, not surprisingly, Caspar David Friedrich is cited as an influence.

Helnwein talkes to Olga Buckley

Jul 2-30 Summer Exhibition Includes works by William Crozier, Gottfried Helnwein and Sarah Walker.

The Times: "...these photo-paintings appear even more real than a photograph: they are hyper-real, super-saturated depictions of the world that surrounds us, as we would like to see it. Helnwein’s landscapes offer us the world as we see it in our mind’s eye, our memories. What is certain is that with these works Helnwein has raised the bar for artists to come with art that is groundbreaking in terms of scale, skill and vision. Painted mountains, fields and sky can never be the same again."

"Helnwein's meticulous Irish landscapes, which are the cornerstone of this Crawford show, are unashamedly aesthetic: gorgeous confections of pure, delicious spectacle. The typically epic but not inhuman scale imitates the subject matter. The tonal realism will make people go "Wow, are they paintings?" - thanks to the photorealist finish which seems free of the foibles of the human hand. Helnwein works with very small brushes - highlighting and subtly magnifying here, muting colours or creating shadows there; pushing some paintings towards momentary sleights of impressionism; and others towards seamless, burnished hyperreality. The bird's eye view suggests a kind of superhuman vision which can simultaneously take in the entire view with breath-taking clarity, like some bionic eagle." Mic Moroney, from the essay "Out of the Apocalypse into the Sublime - bursting into Irish Landscape: Citizen Helnwein"

* Helnwein's Epiphany I has been up on our site for years now. For a while I used it as wallpaper on my desktop. Perhaps that explains how the first hypertext poem came to be one about the Virgin. But as I struggled with updating the site, I checked all my old resources and came across materials that explain Helnwein's commitments and meanings far better than I could alone.

"When I am reincarnated I want to come back to this castle and relive tonight!" Nora Owen, former Minister for Justice of Ireland

Continuing the theme of documenting the landscape, internationally renowned artist Goffried Helnwein will exhibit a number of large-scale photo-realist canvases depicting Irish landscapes. Helnwein lives for much of the year in Co. Tipperary and his paintings illustrate the drama and the beauty of the countryside as well as revealing the changing landscape of Ireland. Helnwein, (born in Vienna in 1948), is a formidable artist and his work has often been proved controversial, because they function as moral probes. He continually reveals emotive issues within his work practice.

Ich spüre ein überwältigend emotionales Gefühl, wenn ich im Flugzeug sitze und schaue herunter auf diese kleine grüne Insel Irland. Ich werde so sentimental dass ich Tränen in den Augen habe. Obwohl ich dort nicht geboren bin, habe ich das Gefühl, ich gehöre zu diesen vielen Iren, die dort seit Jahrhunderten um ihre ihre karge Existenz kämpfen, singen, dichten, saufen und ständig auswandern mussten. Aus irgendeinem Grunde fühle ich mich als Teil dieser eigenartigen und traurigen Geschichte.

Most Popular: * Haring, Keith (1958-1990)@ * Hine, Lewis Wickes (1874-1940)@ * Helnwein, Gottfried (b. 1948)@ * Hirschfeld, Al (1903-2003)@ * Hundertwasser, Friedensreich (1928-2000)@ * Hopper, Edward (1882-1967)@ * Hockney, David@ * Hockney, David (b. 1937)@ * Hunter, Dard (William Joseph) (1883-1966)@ * Hughes, Arthur (1832-1915)@

After rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names of contemporary art as a child, Cyril Helnwein now lives quietly in Ireland, surrounded by a circle of loyal friends -famous or not- close to whom he seems to have foud some kind of serenity. Glitters of fame ? He leaves them to others - who have more time to spend in official receptions and society dinners. Quick interview with a shadow artist who keeps trying to bring our world to light...

group show Artists support Nazareth House in Cape Town South Africa. Nazareth House is a world respected organisation dedicated to the stable and secure care of children in need. The Sisters of Nazareth were asked to care for one HIV baby in 1992 and since then, in their centre and their township outreach programmes, they have looked after more than 250 HIV infected babies and children.

Helnwein's painting - both cheekily and totally in homage - appropriates the great paintings, "The Polar Sea" (1824) by the leading German Romantic landscape artist Casper David Friedrich. Helnwein here re-renders the painting in a gloomy, cinematic blue-black duochrome, and hugely magnifies it from its original scale (about 1 metre by 1 metre 30), although the foundered ship still seems dwarfed and pulverised by the splintering ice sheets. It remains a fine example of that particularly Germanic celebration of heroic humanity dashing itself against the majestic cruelty of nature. Helnwein, in his wry title and borrowing of the image, is suggesting an uncomfortable paradigm behind Friedrich's painting - a perpetual sense of momentous revolution within nature, raw humanity and indeed artistic culture. These ideas pervaded Friedrich's work, as well as that of composer Richard Wagner and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche - all of whose works were later so mistakenly absorbed into the "superhuman" aesthetic of Nazi ideaology and doctrine.

Antje Vollmer, vice-speaker of German parliament, spends her vacation at the home of Gottfried Helnwein and his family in Ireland where she meets with artists, writers, actors, musicians and other people active in the fields of culture. For the past 3 years, every summer, Gottfried Helnwein is inviting creative people from all over the world to stay at his home in Ireland.

group show

A castle in Tipperary is the setting for this most unlikely of squires. Politics, paint and provocation are the life blood of Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein and his work.

Kiltinane, Tipperary