HR Giger

We would like to thank the Willy Reber Foundation, Valbella, for supporting and funding the publication and printing of this book.

This catalogue is published in conjunction with the exhibition

HRGiger

Das Schaffen vor Alien 1961–1976

Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur June 30 to September 9, 2007

Translation, copyediting, and proofing: Tradukas GbR (Paul Bewicke, Meredith Dale, Julie Gregson, Eva-Raphaela Jaksch, Nina Hausmann, Melanie Newton, John Rayner)

Design and typesetting: Guido Widmer, Zürich

Reproductions: Graphic Studio, Bussolengo (Verona) Printed and bound by: Graphic Studio, Bussolengo (Verona)

Front cover: HR Giger, Frau mit Kind (Woman and Child), 1967, india ink on paper, 80 × 88 cm, Museum HR Giger, Gruyères, cat. no. 40

Back cover: HR Giger, Kleisterbild, 1964 (Glue Painting), india ink on paper on wood, 78 × 64 cm, Museum HR Giger, Gruyères, cat. no. 20

© 2007 for all works by HR Giger: HR Giger, Zürich

In collaboration with the Museum HR Giger, Gruyères www.hrgigermuseum.com

© 2007 Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur

Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG, Zürich

All rights reserved

Museum edition (in German)ISBN 978-3-905240-50-4

Trade edition (in German)ISBN 978-3-85881-195-0

Trade edition (in English)ISBN 978-3-85881-708-2

www.scheidegger-spiess.ch

CONTENTS

Foreword 7 BEAT STUTZER

Between Stool and Bench: Aspects of Giger’s Reception 11 BEAT STUTZER

ILLUSTRATIONS 1: PROLOGUE 17

Liberation Through Horror: Giger and the Fantastic in Art 25 CARLOS ARENAS

ILLUSTRATIONS 2: WORKS BY HR GIGER 37

The Beauty and Surrealism of HR Giger 71 FRITZ BILLETER

On Tachism, Bathtubs, and Garbage Crushers; or, Observations and Remarks on Giger’s Pictorial Strategies 97 BEAT STUTZER

Portrait of an Immortal Love: The Painting Li II 127 KATHLEEN BÜHLER

Appendix

Biography 151 Bibliography 155 List of Exhibited Works 159

Credits 166 The Authors 167

The Smoking Fire, from Carceri d’invenzione, plate VI, 1741–49, 1761–65

Aquatint on paper, 54.9 × 40.3 cm

IV

The Drawbridge, from Carceri d’invenzione, plate VII, 1741–49, 1761–65

Aquatint on paper, 56.1 × 41.5 cm

The

Aquatint on paper, 55.6 × 41.8 cm

II Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78)

III Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78)

Round Tower, from Carceri d’invenzione, plate III, 1741–49, 1761–65

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78)

V

Francisco José de Goya (1746–1828) Modo de volar (Flying Method) from Los Proverbios, c. 1816/1864

Etching, aquatint, and drypoint on paper, 30.7 × 43.5 cm

VI

Francisco José de Goya (1746–1828)

El sueño de la razón produce monstruos (The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters) from Caprichos, plate 43, 1797–98/1855

Etching and aquatint on paper, 30.7 × 43.5 cm

1 2

1–5

Atomkinder, 1963 Atomic Children India ink on transcop, various formats

6 7 8 10

6–8

Atomkinder, 1964

Atomic Children India ink on transcop, various formats

Atomkinder, 1964

Atomic Children India ink on transcop, 23 × 18.5 cm

28 Cthulhu II, 1966 India ink on transcop on wood, 80 × 63 cm

29 Phantom der Oper, 1966 Phantom of the Opera India ink on transcop on wood, 80 × 63 cm

32 Schacht VI, 1966 Shaft VI India ink on paper on wood, 83.5 × 62 cm

33

Schacht VII, 1966 Shaft VII India ink on transcop on wood, 83.5 × 62 cm

41

Alpha (Zwei Frauen I), 1967

Alpha (Two Women I)

India ink on transcop on wood, 110 × 105 cm

44

Unter der Erde, 1968 Under the Earth India ink on paper on wood, 170 × 110 cm

58

Passage Triptychon, 1970 Oil on wood, 140 × 205 cm

74

Landschaft XXII, 1973

Landscape XXII

Acrylic on paper on wood, 21 × 30 cm

75

Landschaft XXIII, 1973

Landscape XXIII

Acrylic on paper on wood, 21 × 30 cm

76 Landschaft VII, 1972 Landscape VII

Acrylic on paper on wood, 70 × 100 cm

PORTRAIT OF AN IMMORTAL LOVE: THE PAINTING LI II

When in 1973 Hansruedi Giger began painting the portrait of Li Tobler, his partner at the time, he rather perplexingly portrayed her attractive face as a decapitated head. His picture, which was created two years before her violent suicide, prophetically seems to anticipate this later, tragic event. Despite these somber circumstances, the portrait is one of the most frequently reproduced works from Giger’s oeuvre. The artist does not just break with the conventions of traditional portrait painting that require a painted likeness to immortalize the subject by depicting him or her as a living being. His depiction of Li Tobler also very much represents the embodiment of his ideal woman. Nowhere else does he so expressly preserve her as one of the undead for posterity, even though he counterbalances signs of life with indications of death in her portrait. This unsettling connection between Eros and Thanatos raises questions about the artistic and cultural paradigms that might have influenced his work, as well as about the role the subject played in Giger’s life.

Fateful Encounter

The artist repeatedly produced brochures, exhibition posters, exhibition catalogues, and invitations modeled on the portrait Li II (cat. no. 83; 1973–74), a large-format acrylic that he painted as an homage to his partner Li Tobler (1948–75).1 His almost obsessive use of the image is evidence of its great significance in his oeuvre and also reveals a deep connection with the person depicted. Along with the record cover for the rock group Blondie showing the face of Debbie Harry (1981), the painted-over photograph of Friedrich Kuhn (1973), a portrait of Sergius Golowin (1977), and other commissioned work, it is one of the few portraits of Giger’s. At the same time, with its high cheekbones, wide-set, almondshaped eyes, and delicate features, it became a prototype for practically all women’s faces that he subsequently portrayed.

The artist met the budding actress in Zürich in 1966 when she was taking lessons at the studio theater with Felix Rellstab, the founding director of the Neumarkt theater. Li Tobler was active at a time in the history of Zürich theater that was marked by tension and a sense of new beginnings. Felix Rellstab was a politically astute and bold director who made au-

85 c, d

Passagen–Tempel, 1974

Passages Temples

Acrylic on paper on wood, 240 × 280 cm