Welcome to the World of H.R. Giger; In the Belly of the Beast, With ...

plete, opened its doors in 2003. "At thebeginning of the project," explains Gigerin his Zurich atelier, "I was fascinatedwith concrete, because I felt that anantique building such as this neededstone, aged stone, so I used a mixtureof cement and fiberglass to achieve arock gray color for most of the interiorelements. But it didn't work when wetried to use it for the ceiling because thecast arches weighed too much."The cast concrete surfaces of the barfurnishings have been polished to thepoint that they are skin soft to the touch.It enhances the impression of beinginside a once living creature, of sittingon something, perhaps, less than alive,but very warm and enveloping just thesame.The artist states proudly, "I built muchmore on this bar with my own handsthan any of the other ones I had designed,previously," referring to the,now closed, Giger Bar in Tokyo, and thevery-much open one in Chur, Switzerland,the city of his birth and where anupcoming two-month retrospective, (thistime limited to his pre-Alien artwork) willtake place this summer at the BundnerKunstmuseum.From the start of his artistic career,Giger has confronted the traditional ambivalenceof man towards the scientificadvances that can alter the nature ofthe human body. This issue has nowacquired a real urgency and prompteda moral and philosophical debate byrecent experiments in genetic engineering,such as the possibility of cloninghuman beings. The detailed depiction ofhis "Biomechanoid" beings in his classic,translucent airbrush works originatedin the late 1960's, but in his latestsculptures and installations they haveacquired a new and eerie physical form.Giger's art consistently provokes astrange perturbing feeling becausehe continuously touches on profoundissues that resonate in all of us and, inmany instances, seems to anticipateour future not only as individuals butalso as a species. His intellectual concernson this level are matched only bythe impact of his highly original works,his constant experimentation with differentmedia, and an ever more polishedexecution.Etienne Chatton, founder of the InternationalCenter of Fantastic Art of Gruyeres,considers Giger the most importantartist alive today for his premonitoryworks. "He is the only artist who hasseen the dangerous allure of geneticallymodified beings, and has linked it to ourunderlying fears', says Chatton. "Giger'sBiomechanoids were conceived wellbefore today's scientific advances."Another recurring theme in Giger's oeuvreis his concern with overpopulation, aThree views. Museum Giger Gar, Gruyeres. Photo: © 2003 Wolfgang HolzTATTOO