Scheidegger & Spiess International New Titles Spring 2023

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HR GIGER 126 83 Li II, 1973–74 Acrylic and india ink on paper on wood, 200×140 cm KATHLEEN BÜHLER CARLOS ARENAS 28 HR GIGER 64 Cat. no. IV: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Drawbridge, from Carceri d’invenzione, plate VII, 1741– 49, 1761– 65 Aquatint on paper, 56.1×41.5 cm 37 Blutuhr mit Wachskopf, 1967 Blood Clock with Wax Head Polyester, metal, and red color, 80×32×32 cm Cat. no. 33: HR Giger, Schacht VII (Shaft VII), 1966 India ink on transcop on wood, 63×80 cm Francisco José de Goya, Aquelarre (Witches’ Sabbath), 1797–98 Oil on wood, 43×30 cm Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid 42 Bettler, 1967 Beggar Bronze, 58×58×75 cm 43 Kofferbaby, 1967 Suitcase Baby Bronze, black paint, and gilt, 50×75×20 cm HR Giger, Hexentanz (Witches’ Dance), 1977 Acrylic on oil paper on wood, 200×140 cm Private collection GIGER AND THE FANTASTIC IN ART 29 HR GIGER 65 Giger_024a037_e_Arenas gs 4-06-2007 18:32 Pagina 28 Giger_024a037_e_Arenas gs 4-06-2007 18:32 Pagina 29 fragments: stairways leading to infinity, impassable drawbridges, torture machines, and dungeons. The Carceri provoke a feeling of claustrophobia and feature gloomy accoutrements of the kind Giger used in his first pen-and-ink drawings, the Schächte (Shaft) pictures, especially in Schacht VI and VII (cat. nos. 32, 33). Made up of delusions and nightmares (sleepwalking, stairways, labyrinths), these pictures represent a journey through the inner self, through underground hallways and corridors that open onto gloomy and unsettling chambers and are sometimes inhabited by ghost-like beings. But Giger continues descending, down to the organic bone architecture of hell, as we see in his Passagen-Tempel (Passages Temples, cat. no. 85) series, where he populates intrauterine landscapes (corresponding to his horror vision of birth) with dead and mutilated figures. This is primal fear, prenatal terror, for birth represents one of the most traumatic of human experiences. Giger delves deeper into the events that precede our arrival in the world and in the process goes one step further than the surrealists, who tended to restrict themselves to childhood experiences. 8 His depictions of fetuses, birth machines, and views of the inside of the womb evoke a disturbing symbolism. Francisco José de Goya Giger’s interest in folk mythology and superstition (as well as magic, witchcraft, and occultism) allows us to connect the satanic pictures among his work with another artist who also showed great interest in this theme, namely, Francisco José de Goya (1746–1828). Goya turned his attention to folk culture and reworked the medieval myths in his later paintings, such as the Aquelarre (Witches’ Sabbath). In this representation of a gathering of witches around the figure of the devil (personified as a he-goat) he amplified the shock effect by deforming the faces. Giger revived and renewed this theme between 1975 and 1977, the highpoint of his airbrush phase. He used the airbrush in his own idiosyncratic manner, spraying directly onto the paper, a kind of écriture automatique that allowed him— analogously to the surrealist method—to realize his visions and ideas immediately and directly. He developed this technique in the monochrome experiments of the Aleph (cat. no. 65) and other works through to its climax, the “satanic paintings” of large figures such as Satan and Lilith, in which the demonic predominates. Giger’s satanic symbolism shows itself to be strongly influenced by the esoteric writings of Eliphas Lévi, Gustav Meyrink, and Giger_104a126_e_Bildteil gs 4-06-2007 18:20 Pagina 126 Giger_127a140_e_Bühler gs 4-06-2007 18:21 Pagina 127 Giger_054a069_e_Bildteil gs 4-06-2007 19:04 Pagina 64 Giger_054a069_e_Bildteil gs 4-06-2007 19:04 Pagina 65 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- 127 The multifaceted, always surprising early work of Swiss artist and designer HR Giger HR GIGER im Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess
Edited by Beat Stutzer Book design by Guido Widmer Paperback approx. 168 pages, 106 color and 28 b/w illustrations 20 × 26.5 cm 978-3-03942-136-7 English sFr. 49.00 | € 48.00 | £ 42.00 | $ 50.00 MAY 2023 (Europe) SEPTEMBER ISBN 9783039421367 2023 (US) New edition of the only book published to date on the multifaceted early work of celebrated Swiss artist and designer HR Giger (1940–2014) Features numerous works by HR Giger that have rarely been published or put on public display Highlights relations of HR Giger’s art to that of distinguished precursors, such as Piranesi, Goya, Fuseli, Klinger, and Ensor 9 783039 421367 HR Giger The Oeuvre Before Alien 1961–1976 Also available: HR Giger (1940–2014) remains one of the outstanding figures in Swiss art and design history. He achieved international fame in 1979 for designing the fantastic creatures and eerie environments that terrified moviegoers in Ridley Scott’s science fiction film Alien. Yet, before these iconic creations made him a celebrity and won him an Academy Award for visual effects, Giger was already highly regarded in the international art world of the 1960s and 1970s, for taking one of the most independent positions in the succession of Surrealism. First published in 2007, this only book to date on HR Giger’s early work features a comprehensive collection of his drawings, early airbrush paintings, and designs for oppressive environments. It examines Giger’s art from its origins and places it in an art history of horror. Most of the works shown in this volume are only rarely on public display. Here they are presented in dialogue with works by distinguished precursors such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Francisco de Goya, Henry Fuseli, Max Klinger, and James Ensor. Beat Stutzer is a Lucerne-based art historian, writer, and curator. He served as director of the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur from 1982–2011 and as curator of the Segantini Museum in St. Moritz from 1998–2016. HR Giger by Camille Vivier 978-3-03942-116-9 English / German sFr. 99.00 | € 97.00 | £ 85.00 | $ 110.00 ISBN 978-3-03942-116-9 9 783039 421169 Scheidegger & Spiess Spring 2023 11
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