Gaby Falk

I love Taschen's Basic Art series.

Giger is an absolutely fascinating overview of the artist's life and work by the artist himself. Copious illustrations and examples of Giger's work accompany the text. Giger talks about his childhood obsessions (suspender fasteners among them), the work he did for Alien and Jodorowsky's unrealized Dune, his love life, his work with airbrush, the Dead Kennedys getting in legal trouble because they included "Landscape XX" (the so-called "Penis Landscape") in one of their records, and more. An intriguing, engaging, fascinating book by and about a very unique artist. It also includes a profoundly trippy foreword by Timothy Leary.… (meer)

Darkly beautiful reflections of a very dark mind.

I had no idea until now that this was the mastermind behind the morbid, fascinating creature of the Alien franchise, but some of his other work makes that look like child's play, and learning about the man behind the art was almost more intriguing than viewing the art itself. Giger's anecdotes illustrate how so much of his work was inspired by the same obsessions and fears that began in his early life - women, weapons, worm-like creatures, death, and ghosts. Much of his work pays homage to the dark sides of these subjects not only with their color scheme (various black and gray tones which, for some reason, remind me of early X-ray crystallography images), but also in their oddly structured nature and an abundance of phallic and sexual symbolism.

I may not be a diehard fan like the writer of the foreword - Giger's work doesn't exactly send me into poetic rhapsodies - but I love the "biomechanical" aesthetic for which his art is famous. At the end of the day our bodies are, in a sense, highly evolved machines with a precisely regulated array of functions to keep us alive. To visualize our internal machinery using gears and springs and the like - while simultaneously illustrating the flip side of our existence, our darkest desires and fears, takes a very unique mind with a penchant for the ominous. And I love how, with the then highly-disdained airbrush, Giger managed to produce works of such realism that he was even questioned at one point whether they weren't actual photos.

My 2 favorite works from his collection are Li I and Li II, particularly memorable because of Li Tobler's tragic fate and how they almost seem like posthumous homages to her struggles. The paintings where her face makes an appearance seem to have a surreal aspect to them simply because of that presence. But I guess that's the essence of the word "surreal" - it wouldn't exist without the "real." And whether I like all his art or not, I can definitely say that H.R. Giger was a master of the surreal, as well as the shocking and provocative. I'd recommend his art to anyone who likes horror and is up for some interesting dreams (and/or nightmares).… (meer)