HR Giger.

[Rodders]

Hello all. I'm surprised that there isn't a thread already about the Swiss Artist HR Giger. Anyway, i thought i't start one.

I have a couple of his books at home and of all the SFF artists, i felt that Giger definately created his own unique artistic style. What would you call it? Xenoerotisim? How close do you think it becomes to pornography? (Sorry, that's the closest i can think of it.)

Personally, I think that it's a little weird, but i find it creative and unique. Several album covers and of course the Alien and Sil. Just interested to see what other Chrons think.

[j. d. worthington]

Haven't gone looking, but I do recall there were at least one or two threads on Giger and his work around here someplace....

At any rate, I'd say he is simply a surrealist, albeit with a good deal more interest in technology than the classic surrealists are perhaps considered as having by most. His work has the same blurring of lines, the same mixture of dreamlike/nightmarish symbolism and eroticism, the same meeting of death, decay, and sex, and so on, that one sees in so many of the surrealist artists.

At his worst, rather confusing. At his best (which is quite often) extremely disturbing and unsettling, and very powerful.

[Rodders]

Sory JD, i did look, but couldn't find anything.

As for Giger. Do you like his work?

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Rodders

Sory JD, i did look, but couldn't find anything.

As for Giger. Do you like his work?

Oh, most definitely. Unfortunately, I no longer have the various books of his art I once owned... they all went the other way in the divorce, I'm afraid, and I've not had the finances to pick up replacement copies....

[Dave]

Early Giger Stuff
Giger's Alien sculpture banned from Exhibition
Gothic art

I just searched for "Giger" Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles: forums - Search Results

[HareBrain]

Originally Posted by Rodders

What would you call it? Xenoerotisim? How close do you think it becomes to pornography? (Sorry, that's the closest i can think of it.)

The only book I own of his is New York. Personally, I find his sexual imagery about as far from pornography as it's possible to get - it's sexuality as nightmare. I find his work fascinating and disturbing in equal measure, compelling but I always feel the need for an antidote afterwards in case I somehow get sucked into it and can't escape. In fact that links with a quote I found by Nevill Drury in a book called Magic and Witchcraft:

There is an unquestionable potency - even a macabre beauty - in his biomechanoid creations, but his nightmare fusions of the human and the mechanical also breathe a sense of no escape - a sense that we are all trapped in a virtual hell of our own making. Perhaps this is a portent of our times.

Which I think summarises his stuff pretty well. I'm glad to have experienced his work, but I'm also glad not to be him.