Sean Penn visits Helnwein in his L.A, studio and invites him to join in a collaboration on several Film- and video projects. .
Beginning of the friendship with Sean Penn, who said in an interview: "Well, the world is a haunted house, and Helnwein at times is our tour guide through it. A lot of it is the way he's approached life. And it doesn't take someone knowing him to know that. You take one look at the paintings and you say "this guy has been around." You can't sit in a closet - and create this. This level of work is earned."
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Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, „Meisterwerke der Fotografie: Face to Face", Portraitfotografie aus der Sammlung der DG- Bank.

San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, „Portrait Obscured“.

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and William S. Farish, American Ambassador to Great Britain, visit Gottfried Helnwein at his studio in Ireland.

Beck stays at Helnwein's castle in Ireland.
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Nicolas Cage visits the studio and acquires several works of Helnwein, amongst them "Red Gun".
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Arnold Schwarzenegger visits Helnwein's studio in Los Angeles.
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Sir Ben Kingsley visits Helnwein's studio in Los Angeles.
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2001 Kilkenny Arts Festival, Ireland.
One man show at the Butler House and Installation in the city of Kilkenny at the annual Arts Festival, with large digital prints of children's faces and monochromatic blue scenes at the facades of houses in the medieval town center
"Ephiphany I", 8x12m (25x36 feet), on the wall of Kilkenny Castle. ...

Gottfried Helnwein at the Kilkenny Arts Festival 2001

Painting - Austrian Artists now..
Albertina, Vienna and the Museum of Fine Art, Budapest

Albertina, Wien und Museum der Bildenden Künste, Budapest, „Austrian Artists now“.

Stage design and costumes for Strawinsky's "Rake's progress" at the State Opera in Hamburg (Hamburgische Staatsoper).
Director: Jurgen Flimm, coductor: Ingo Metzmacher ...

"Between Earth and Heaven, New Classical Movements in the Art of Today".
Museum of Modern Art, Oostende, Belgium. Installation "Fall of the Angels", digital print, 7X10m.

2000 The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presented Helnwein's painting "Mouse I" (1995, oil and acrylic on canvas, 210 cm x 310 cm) at the exhibition The Darker Side of Playland: Childhood Imagery from the Logan Collection...
Alicia Miller commented on Helnwein's work in Artweek: "...For children, not understanding what really to be afraid of, these dreams portend some pain and disturbance lurking into the landscape. Perhaps nothing in the exhibition exemplifies this better than Gottfried Helnwein's 'Mickey'. His portrait of Disney's favorite mouse occupies an entire wall of the gallery; rendered from an oblique angle, his jaunty, ingenuous visage looks somehow sneaky and suspicious. His broad smile, encasing a row of gleaming teeth, seems more a snarl or leer. This is Mickey as Mr. Hyde, his hidden other self now disturbingly revealed. ...

One-man show at Robert Sandelson Gallery, London..
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Inspired by the serene nature that sorrounds his new home in Ireland, Helnwein starts to paint landscapes..
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Sir James R. Mancham, president of the republic of Seychelles, visits Helnwein in Ireland and stays at his castle.

"The American paintings", Helnwein works on a series of blue monochromatic paintings, a surreal vision of America inspired by film noir and newspaper-photography from the 50ies and 60ies.
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Inspired by Helnwein's early paintings, Argentinian writer Rodrigo M. Malmsten creates the play "Kleines Helnwein".
Premiere at the Theatro San Martin in Buenos Aires

The Ludwig Museum Cologne shows Helnwein's Installation "Poems" in the exhibition "Augenblick und Endlichkeit - Das von der Photographie geprägte Jahrhundert.
40 great photographers of the 20th century. ...

Gottfried at the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, "Augenblick und Endlichkeit"