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H.R. GIGER

HR GIGER
H. R. Giger is recognized as one of the world's foremost artists of Fantastic Realism. Born in 1940 to a chemistís family in Chur, Switzerland, he moved in 1962 to Zurich, where he studied architecture and industrial design at the School of Applied Arts. By 1964 he was producing his first artworks, mostly ink drawings and oil paintings, resulting in his first solo exhibition in 1966, followed by the publication and world-wide distribution of his first poster edition in 1969. Shortly after, he discovered the airbrush and, along with it, his own unique freehand painting style, leading to the creation of many of his most well known works, the surrealistic Biomechanical dreamscapes, which formed the cornerstone of his fame. To date, 20 books have been published about Gigerís art.

Giger's third and most famous book, Necronomicon, published in 1977, served as the visual inspiration for director Ridley Scott's film Alien, Giger's first film assignment, which earned him the 1980 Oscar for the Best Achievement in Visual Effects for his designs of the film's title character and the stages of its lifecycle, plus the film's the otherworldly environments. Giger's other film works include Poltergeist II, Alien3 and Species.

Giger's album covers for Debbie Harry and the band ELP were voted among the 100 best in music history in a survey of rock journalists. Throughout his career, Giger also worked in sculpture and, in 1988, created his first total environment, the Tokyo Giger Bar, and in 1992 a second Giger Bar in Chur.

In 1998, The HR Giger Museum, a four-level building complex in the historic, medieval walled city of GruyËres, Switzerland, opened its doors in June of 1998.

As the permanent home to many of the artist's most prominent works, the Giger Museum houses the largest collection of the artist's paintings, sculptures, furniture and film designs, dating from the early 1960's until the present day.

The top floor of the Museum houses Giger's private collection, which includes over 600 works of art by Salvador Dali, Ernst Fuchs, Dado, Bruno Weber, G¸nther Brus, Claude Sandoz, FranÁois Burland, Friedrich Kuhn, Joe Coleman, Sibylle Ruppert, Andre Lassen, among many others.
The Giger Museum Gallery is located in the adjoining wing of the museum complex, above the H.R. Giger Museum Bar. There, since 1999, and now on a twice a year rotating basis, Giger utilizes the three room exhibition space to show the work of artists, mostly those already in his private collection, in an effort to help broaden the art appreciation of visitors to his museum. Previous exhibitions have been for Wessi, Prof. Ernst Fuchs, Hans Bellmer, Fred Knecht, Stelio Diamantopoulos, Martin Schwarz, Claude Sandoz, G¸nther Brus, FranÁois Burland, Rudolf St¸ ssi, Victor Safonkin, and the Society for Art of Imagination.

The adjoining new HR Giger Museum Bar was officially opened on April 12, 2003 as part of the museum complex. Gigerís designs for the bar emphasizes the pre-existing Gothic architecture of the 400 year old space. The giant skeletal arches covering the vaulted ceiling, together with the bar's fantastic stony furniture, evoke the building's original medieval character and give the space a church-like feeling.

During the last 4 years, Giger has been honored with a series of major museum retrospectives. In 2004 was the opening of a six-month exhibition at the Museum Halle Saint Pierre in Paris, France. "Le monde selon H.R. Giger" (The World According to H.R. Giger.) The Paris retrospective was followed by ëH.R. Giger in Pragueî in 2005 at the National Technical Museum of Prague, in the Czech Republic and in 2006 by "Giger in Wien" at the Kunsthaus Wien, in Austria. In July of 2007 Giger had his first museum exhibition in Switzerland, in the city of his birth, Chur, at the Bundner Kunstmuseum, followed in October by his major exhibit in Spain at The Polytechnic University of Valencia.

The artist lives and works in Zurich with his wife, Carmen Maria Scheifele Giger, the co-director of the H.R. Giger Museum.

To learn more about the artist and his current projects, visit his official website, www.HRGiger.com and www.HRGigerMuseum.com.