MP Off Grid Living: The works of 'Alien' Artist H.R. Giger (1940-2014)

A Visionary was lost today...

'Alien' artist H.R. Giger dies at 74

#HRGiger, Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor, and set designer, won an Academy Award for Best Achievement for Visual Effects for his design work on the film Alien. Heis seen here at the H R Giger Retrospective Exhibition at the Fabrik
der Kuenste, Hamburg, Germany, 19 Jan 2012. (Rex)

"If they like my work they are creative ... or they are crazy." - H.R. Giger

By
FRANK JORDANS of Associated Press

Sandra Mivelaz, administrator of the H.R. Giger museum in Gruyeres, western Switzerland, told The AssociatedPress that Giger died in a hospital on Monday.

Giger's works, often showing macabre scenes of humans and machines fused into hellish
hybrids, influenced a generation of movie directors and inspired an enduring fashion for "biomechanical" tattoos.

"Birth Machine" Sculpture in Gruyères

One of Giger’s most famous paintings is the Birth Machine in 1967. Some
say living on 17 Storchengasse Street, meaning Stork Street, inspired
him to do this work. “My paintings express all kinds of themes and often
my feelings. Most of the time there is no ‘message’ attached to them.
For example, The ‘Birth Machine’ is a slice through of a Walther P38
pistol. You see the barrel, and instead of bullets there are little men
with large glasses. They sit there with a weapon in their hands. This
weapon is a weapon with a magazine, and in that magazine are more
pistols with magazines. This means that you can go deeper and deeper.
“With this, I wanted to illustrate the enormous population explosion
which is happening. All unpleasant things come from the fact that there
are too many people on this planet.” Said H.R. Giger. - narrativeinart.wordpress

Hans Rudolf "Ruedi" Giger (/ˈɡiːɡər/; 5 February 1940 – 12 May 2014) was a Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and set designer. He was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award
for Best Achievement for Visual Effects for their design work on the film Alien. He was named to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2013. (Wikipedia)

Photos: The works of H.R. Giger

"My paintings seem to make the strongest impression on people who are, well, who are crazy," Giger said in a 1979 interview with Starlog magazine. "If they like my work they are creative ... or they are crazy."

Born Hans Ruedi Giger on Feb. 5, 1940, in the southeastern Swiss town of Chur, he trained as an industrial designer because his father insisted that he learn a proper trade.

His mother Melli, to whom he showed a lifelong devotion, encouraged her son's passion for
art, despite his unconventional obsession with death and sex that found little appreciation in 1960s rural Switzerland. The host of one of his early exhibitions was reportedly forced to wipe the spit of disgusted neighbors off the gallery windows every morning.

A collection of his early work, "Ein Fressen fuer den Psychiater" — "A Feast for the
Psychiatrist" — used mainly ink and oil, but Giger soon discovered the airbrush and pioneered his own freehand technique. He also created sculptures, preferably using metal, styorofoam and plastic.

Giger'svision of a human skull encased in a machine appeared on the cover of
"Brain Salad Surgery," a 1973 album by the rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Along with his design for Debbie Harry's solo album, "Koo Koo"(1981), it featured in a 1991 Rolling Stone magazine list of the top 100 album covers of all time.

Giger went on to work as a set designer
for Hollywood, contributing to "Species," ''Poltergeist II," ''Dune," and most famously "Alien," for which he received a 1979 Academy Award for special effects. Frequently frustrated by the Hollywood production
process, Giger eventually disowned much of the work that was attributed
to him on screen.

The image of a brooding, mysterious artist was
nurtured by Giger working only at night, keeping his curtains permanently drawn and dressing mainly in black — a habit he acquired
while working as a draftsman because it made Indian ink stains stand out
less on his clothes.

While his work was commercially successful,
critics derided it as morbid kitsch. His designs were exhibited more frequently in "Alien" theme bars, short-lived Giger museums and at tattoo conventions than in established art galleries.

In 1998, Giger acquired the Chateau St. Germain in Gruyeres and established the H.R. Giger Museum.

Giger was pleased that his idea of machines with human skin became a popular motif in body art.

"The greatest compliment is when people get tattooed with my work, whether
it's done well or not," he told Seconds magazine in 1994. "To wear something like that your whole life is the largest compliment someone can pay to you as an artist."

Details on survivors and funeral plans were not immediately available.

___

David Rising contributed to this report.

http://news.msn.com/pop-culture/alien-artist-hr-giger-dies-at-74-1

The works of H.R. Giger

#cyberpunk #Necronomicon #BirthMachine #Alien

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