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H. R. Giger

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Hans Ruedi Giger (IPA: [ˈɡi ɡɚ]) (born at Chur, Grisons canton, February 5, 1940) is a Swiss painter best known for his design work on the film Alien.

Contents

Work

Giger's Alien design, inspired by his painting "Necronom IV", earned him an Oscar in 1980. His fourth published book of paintings, titled Necronomicon (followed by Necronomicon II in 1985), continued his rise to international prominence, as did the frequent appearance of his art in the magazine Omni. Giger is also well known for artwork on a number of popular records, including Emerson Lake and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery, Dead Kennedys' Frankenchrist and Debbie Harry's Koo Koo.

Style

For most of his career, Giger has worked predominantly in airbrush, creating strange monochromatic canvasses depicting surreal, nightmarish landscapes. His most distinctive stylistic innovation is that of a representation of human bodies and machines in a cold, interconnected relationship, described as "biomechanical". His paintings often display fetishistic sexual imagery and are considered disturbing by some. Some of his paintings also feature Satanic imagery, though Giger himself is not known to be a Satanist. He had many meetings with Salvador Dalí, to whom he was introduced by Luis Buñuel. The Spanish painter let Giger see his own work under a new point of view. The Swiss artist then realized the surrealistic aspect of his art, and it was truly inspired by that in later development. He was also a personal friend of Timothy Leary. Giger is perhaps the best known sufferer of night terrors and his paintings are all to some extent inspired by his experiences with that particular sleep disorder. He was originally educated as an architect and made his first paintings as a way of art therapy.

Obscenity lawsuit

Giger's artwork for the Dead Kennedys' album Frankenchrist, (nicknamed Penis Landscape), was at the center of an obscenity lawsuit against Jello Biafra.

Other works

Giger has also created furniture designs, particularly the Harkonnen Capo Chair for an unproduced movie version of the novel Dune that was originally slated to be directed by Alejandro Jodorowski (many years later David Lynch directed the film, using none of Giger's designs). Giger has also applied his biomechanical style to interior design, and several "Giger Bars" sprung up in Tokyo, New York, and his native Switzerland, although the foreign bars have since closed. His art has greatly influenced tattooists and fetishists worldwide. Ibanez guitars has released an H.R. Giger signature series. The Ibanez ICHRG2, an Ibanez Iceman, features the work, "NY City VI", and the Ibanez RGTHRG1, has the work "NY City XIX" printed on it. Oakley borrowed heavily from Giger's bio-mechanical theme for their futuristic sunglass and watch designs.

Pop culture

Movies

Work for recording artists

Interior decoration

Computer games

Giger is often referenced in pop culture and especially in works of the science fiction and cyberpunk genres. Novelist William Gibson (who wrote the original script for Alien³) seems particularly fascinated, presenting in Virtual Light a minor character, Lowell, with New York XXIV tattooed across his back. As well, Yamazaki, a secondary character in Idoru specifically describes the buildings of nanotech Japan as Giger-esque. Comic Book Artist Jhonen Vasquez is a fan of Giger's art and design

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