He was 74.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/13/hr-giger-dead-alien-artist_n_5314408.html
Yeah,this is a big loss…
I remember the first time I ever saw his work…I was flipping through the record collection of my dad’s friend and I saw ELP’s-Brain Salad Surgery…I was so taken with the artwork(what a letdown when I heard the actual music)…
Then of course seeing Alien at 10 years old changed my life…and then his work would always pop up her and there…the crazy penis poster in the Dead Kennedys album(still have it)…the Celtic Frost/Tryptikon shit…and immense and distinctive artist indeed…will be missed…
Every bit of sci-fi/horror/fantasy design for the last 30 years owes at least a little something to Giger.
Every bit of sci-fi/horror/fantasy design for the last 30 years owes at least a little something to Giger.
Abolutely…an incredibly distinctive and influential artist…
RIP. Super badass dude with such a visionary and distinct style. Guy could have been a billiionaire on tattoo royalties alone . . . If there is/was such a thing.
Gonna also have to back up Queer’s take on ELP’s “Brain Salad Surgery”. Haha! Talk about getting duped. Gnarly cover, crazy album name . . . All for a boring ass pile of bloated wank.
RIP. Super badass dude with such a visionary and distinct style. Guy could have been a billiionaire on tattoo royalties alone . . . If there is/was such a thing.
Gonna also have to back up Queer’s take on ELP’s “Brain Salad Surgery”. Haha! Talk about getting duped. Gnarly cover, crazy album name . . . All for a boring ass pile of bloated wank.
Yeah,exactly…with that cover and that album title,it had to be great right? I remember listening to it the first time and I would keep staring at the cover and then looking up in disbelief…“Wait a minute,is this the right album?”…“Something isn’t adding up here”…
Giger was definitely a formative influence; his bio-mechanical style lit the fires of my imagination and gave me much of the impetus for a “techno-organic” hybrid approach to music, art, life…one of the last great Surrealists.
The first exposure I had to the man’s work was reading spare issues of OMNI magazine while waiting at the doctor’s office to get jabbed with needles (also an early exposure to Gibson, Burroughs and much else in the ‘cyberpunk’ vein.) I still remember how his style both seemed totally beyond anything I’d experienced, and yet eerily like something lodged deep within my ‘collective unconscious’ or what have you.
I saw the first couple Alien movies after that, and since then Giger has been one of the few artistic influences that has stuck with me over the decades.
Yeah,exactly…with that cover and that album title,it had to be great right? I remember listening to it the first time and I would keep staring at the cover and then looking up in disbelief…“Wait a minute,is this the right album?”…“Something isn’t adding up here”…
If you want a good laugh, I believe there were some ELP re-issues that came out a few years back, in which they claim - as a rebuttal to the blanket hatred that the punk movement had towards them - that they were the “real” punk rock. As evidence, they offer such punker-than-thou moments like puking in airport terminals. Whoa, watch out now!
One “prog” band that actually did have an interesting ‘space opera’ / sci-fi concept, and which did also enlist Giger for album covers, was MAGMA…who of course invented their own language in which to sing their songs. “Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh” is for sure a desert island disc although few people that I know can tolerate the operatic feel of it.
Magma were awesome…ELP were not…
OOOhhh puking in an airport…how dangerous haha
Yeah, this sucks. What can you say that’s not already been said? He created probably the most recognizable and scariest movie monster of all time.
When I got my first personal computer, in about '96, I remember ordering a screensaver from his store. It came on 2 floppy discs. I remember it being expensive, but it was just so cool. All his famous designs moving and seething.
RIP.
For about 2 years, this was the wallpaper on my computer at home:
[image]http://archives.arte-tv.com/static/c2/agendaexpos/giger/01-Li-I.jpg[/image]
![http://archives.arte-tv.com/static/c2/agendaexpos/giger/01-Li-I.jpg[/image]](http://archives.arte-tv.com/static/c2/agendaexpos/giger/01-Li-I.jpg%5B/image%5D){kind=link}
What else can be said? A visionary. A true genius. A dark light. Guy was probably THE go to for countless bands when it came to album artwork. Giger had one of the - if not THE - most distinctive style in contemporary art. His was the stuff of nightmares. Alien flesh and chrome. His work was pure malevolent sex. Alien sex. Demonic sex.
He had no competitor.
He will be missed. But his legacy will never cease.
RIP
[:(]
How is his name pronounced, by the way? Is it like “ghee-ger” or “guy-ger”?
I remember a long time ago I complimented some dude’s tattoo (he was the artist at some tattoo shop my buddy was considering getting some work done at) and the dude got all snotty about my pronunciation and corrected me . . . I told him “Let me try saying it again . . . FUCK YOU!” and then left.
Now it’s been so long that I don’t remember which is the supposed correct way of saying it (though I think I usually say “Guy-ger”).
(though I think I usually say “Guy-ger”).
That’s how I’ve always pronounced it.
A few years back I went to a bookstore and asked for a copy of Papillon, as I had watched the movie the night before, thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted to check out the book on which it was based.
Book snob behind the counter stared at me in grim silence for at least 5 seconds before snarling (I’m not kidding, dude snarled, can you believe), “It’s pronounced Pap-ee-on”.
“Papillon, Pap-ee-on, whatever. I tell you what, you keep your pronounciation, I’ll keep my fucking cash”.
And I walked out.
Anyway, I think it’s pronounced Gee-Jair.
Anyway, I think it’s pronounced Gee-Jair.
If you look at the pronunciation of it on Wiki it’s /'gi:g(upside down e)r/
the “ger” is a hard sound, but I can’t remember how the “gi” is pronounced. I think it’s a long i, but I’m not sure. one thing I am for sure though is that it ends in ger (“grrrr.”)
could be gig-er, the bastard cousin of “giggity”
I think if it’s a hard “i” it’s supposed to have a line over the top.
So, if there was no line on top, then I guess it is like you guessed last . . . Gigger.
Loved his work. The Passage XXVIII piece is probably my favorite. And of course his work on the Alien movies.
Man, we lost an original, a true legend.
I’ll miss your fetishistic biomechanical cocks, Giger! RIP
Only two years ago I spent over $1000 on a framed Geiger print, which now hangs in my bedroom. Personally picked out the frame myself - a studded steel and black piece to perfectly compliment the sci fi feel of the artwork
Necronom V
[image]http://home.comcast.net/~getgopi/necronom_v.jpg[/image]
![http://home.comcast.net/~getgopi/necronom_v.jpg[/image]](http://home.comcast.net/~getgopi/necronom_v.jpg%5B/image%5D){kind=link}
Anyone who enters my room is either in love with it or repulsed by it. And it will live with me forever.
Love live Giger.