HR Giger: Biography Of This Swiss Artist And Designer
His name, expressed only with his initials, inevitably evokes another great creator of unreal scenarios, the writer HP Lovecraft. And HR Giger, internationally famous Swiss artist and designer (behind whom are such famous creations as the monster from Alien or the sets from Poltergesit II) was inspired for much of his work by Lovecraftian science fiction stories. .
In fact, the artist’s best-known work, currently the object of true cult, is his graphic series called Giger’s Necronomicon, whose title refers to Lovecraft’s work of the same name. But Giger did not limit himself to transferring the universes of the American writer to his designs, he went much further and invented a very personal world full of originality If you want to know more about the life and career of the creator of the Alien monster, keep reading. His extraordinary creative capacity will not leave you indifferent.
Brief biography of HR Giger, the Swiss designer who created Alien
It is not, of course, his only creation, but it is the best known. And the name of Hans Ruedi Giger, better known by the acronym HR Giger, is and will always be linked to the creature that was released to the big screen in 1979 and whose fantastic design earned him, by the way, the Oscar for best design. stage at the 1980 gala.
But, apart from the mysterious alien that traveled on the ship with Sigourney Weaver, Giger has colossal, deliciously dreamlike creations on his payroll, which continue to delight fans of the fantasy and science fiction genre today.
The psychedelic era
Hans Ruedi Giger came into the world in February 1940 in the city of Chur, Switzerland. After completing his primary studies in his hometown, at the beginning of the 1960s we found him in Zurich, at the School of Applied Arts (KGSZ), where he studied Interior Design and Industrial Design, a discipline from which he graduated in 1966. at twenty-six years old. During his studies, the young Giger has been working as an interior designer, so, in his mid-60s, he has quite extensive experience in the field
His first works, made with ink and oil, date back to the early years of the decade, around 1964. His extraordinary talent and powerful creative voice caught the attention of artists and designers, and we soon found him working on furniture design for Andreas Christen.
The 60s were times of upheaval internationally. The hippie movement spreads, and designer drugs, such as the famous LSD, wreak havoc among youth and artists, who see in them the perfect vehicle to create works never seen before. This creative effervescence takes its toll on Giger’s spirit, and he begins to produce notable works In 1966, the Galerie Benno in Zurich allowed him, for the first time, to exhibit his creations alone.
Human-machine
The same year as his exhibition at the Benno, Giger moved to live with the actor Paul Weibel and his partner, the actress Li Tolber, who would become his great and tragic love. What begins with a friendship quickly turns into something deeper and, the following year, Giger and Tolber move into the attic of a ruined house, in poetic harmony with the artist’s creations. It was during this time that Giger created some of his most notable works, such as the famous Birth Machine, which he would later recover in aluminum for the façade of his future museum in Gruyères, Switzerland
The theme of the work is decidedly disturbing and, according to psychologist Stanislav Grof, a friend of Giger, it reflects the trauma that occurred at his birth (the artist had to be extracted with forceps, in a truly difficult birth), a circumstance that caused him terrible nightmares throughout his life. In Birth Machine, Giger shows a strange device that “shoots” children into the world, children who, due to their shapes, are the precedents of the “aliens” that would emerge from his creative mind years later.
Giger’s best-known speculations, his famous Biomechanoids, follow this line: half human, half machine, they represent disturbing beings that move through unknown worlds They seem to be authentic survivors of a global catastrophe caused by the unstoppable advance of technology, which in the 1960s seemed to loom like a threat over the world; Let us not forget that these are the years of the ghost of the atomic bombs. The idea is even clearer in the series of drawings We Atomic Children, where Giger’s overflowing imagination captures amorphous or deformed beings who have lost all reason or morality and move through desolate places. Again, Lovecraft lurks in the shadows.
The great leap to cinema
While his professional future is taking shape, Giger’s emotional situation is unstable. His relationship with Li Tolber has continued, but it is an open relationship, in which they share their time with third parties. Li’s mental health is fragile and, after a period of depression and despondency, in May 1975, the actress shot herself. She is only twenty-seven years old.
Giger is devastated after his death. Li has been, in addition to her great love, a muse of incalculable value to spur her already fertile imagination. In fact, In the artist’s work we can repeatedly see the face of the woman, who watches us between attentive and distracted from worlds that we cannot reach
In 1973, two years before such a tragic outcome, Salvador Dalí, the surrealist genius par excellence, had put Giger in touch with Alejandro Jodorowski (b. 1929), a filmmaker who had in mind to bring Dune, the successful novel, to the big screen. science fiction by Frank Herbert. But, although the preparations, which included Giger’s ideas for the designs, lasted several years, the project never materialized due to lack of financing. Dune would not be brought to the screen until 1984, by David Lynch and, recently, Denis Villeneuve has made a new version of the story.
Success would come to Giger with the design of the main creature in the film Alien, directed by Ridley Scott and released in 1979, as well as various settings for the film Scott thought of Giger after obtaining a copy of his work Giger’s Necronomicon, where the artist captured the nightmarish scenarios that suffocated him at night. For his work on Alien he received the Oscar for best scenic design in 1980. Since then, he would participate in other film projects such as Poltergeist II (from whose final result he would always disassociate himself, claiming that his original ideas had not been respected) and Alien III .
Giger not only participated in films; His designs are also present on album covers and related merchandising, such as the famous poster he designed for the album Frankenchrist, by the group Dead Kennedys, which had serious problems with censorship by openly showing several penises penetrating vulvas. Let us not forget that Giger’s fantasy worlds were fused with an obvious erotic charge
On the other hand, Giger also made his forays into the world of video games, so important for society in the 1980s and 1990s: his designs are present in Dark Seed (1992) and Dark Seed II. That same 1990s saw the birth of the museum dedicated to his work, which Giger assembled at the Chateau de Gruyères, Switzerland, and where it can still be seen today. The collection not only includes some of his most famous designs (such as Alien), but also some works from his private collection, which include none other than Salvador Dalí, among other authors.
HR Giger died in 2014, due to an unfortunate fall, at the age of 74. It is difficult to imagine the world of science fiction (and, therefore, of cinema) without it ; We owe a lot to this Swiss genius who managed to extract the best of the Lovecraftian essence and surrealism and create a unique and original work.
