Power and perversity: why H.R. Giger matters

In a time when high art is toothless, outsider and fantasy art allow us to confront primal fears and desires

H.R. Giger, Bio-mechanical Landscape (1976), acrylic on paper, 200 x 100 cm, © Estate of H.R. Giger

1. Studying the early period of an artist can be rewarding. It satisfies our desire to tie together strands and clues and discern how the artist’s originality manifested itself in preliminary concerns and exposure to identified influences. Recently I looked into the origins of Swiss artist Hansruedi Giger (1940-2014), looking at who he was and the earliest art he made, before he made his iconic designs for the Ridley Scott-directed film Alien (1979). Giger is generally described as a science-fiction or fantasy artist or artist-cum-illustrator, something discussed in the second half of this article.

Giger was something of a loner and daydreamer, described as introverted. His childhood was relatively normal. Giger grew up in a small farmhouse in the Swiss Alps, in Foppa close to the border with Italy. His father (Hans Richard Giger, a pharmacist) had chosen the location because he was worried that his hometown of Chur might be a target during the war. Although Switzerland was neutral, the possibility of invasion was a reasonable concern. Photographs present a healthy child out in pastures, the sheer mountain sides rising over his wooden chalet house.

“Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man's physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.” So wrote Baudelaire and we can describe Giger’s experience as a testament to that insight.