It was presented to National Cinema Museum of Turin the exhibition Beyond Alien: H.R. Giger, there first Italian retrospective dedicated to Hans Ruedi Gigerthe visionary artist who won the Oscar for best special effects for Alien by Ridley Scott. They spoke at the press conference Enzo Ghigo (President of the National Cinema Museum), Marco Witzig (Curator of the exhibition) e Alessia Autuori with Salvatore Lacagnina (by Navigare srl and Glocal Project, co-producers of the exhibition with ONOarte).
The exhibition, curated by Marco Witzig, the leading international expert on the artist, will take place from 5 October 2024 to 16 February 2025 to the Mastio Museum of the Citadel of Turin.
Known to the general public as the man who created the imagery of the film AlienHans Ruedi Giger he is above all a multifaceted artist, endowed with his own unique style, “biomechanical”, as he himself defined it, and who has experimented with the most diverse techniques.
The exhibition aims to retrace, ten years after his death, the entire career of the great Swiss master who profoundly changed and influenced surrealism, science fiction horror and contemporary gothic imagery: a unique event that will involve the city of Turin, with the support of the Municipality of Turin and the National Cinema Museum which will host a cycle of events, meetings and screenings.
“HR Giger was one of the most evocative and attractive creators of recent times, whose work arouses enormous fascination in the various artistic sectors of the underground,” he said Marco Witzigcurator of the exhibition. “He was an artist with a contrasting personality who over the last four decades has developed a very personal work of great visual and symbolic impact. His universe is entirely dark, thanks to a particular surrealism, abject and sumptuous, mechanical and anatomical, capable of instilling terror and admiration at the same time. Giger, with his unique style, has become one of the greatest representatives of the visionary and fantastic art of the 20th century and despite recognition in pop culture, his work has received little approval in institutional circles and is significantly absent from history books of art. This important retrospective is therefore an opportunity to question ourselves about the place that the work of an artist who has influenced and will influence contemporary culture as a whole should have for a long time to come.”
On show over one hundred original pieces between paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, design objects and videos coming from Giger Museum in Switzerland, directed by Carmen Giger, the master’s widow, in an exhibition that will allow all fans to immerse themselves in the artist’s world and admire some of the most iconic pieces live and delve into lesser-known aspects of Giger’s work. Four sections of the exhibition are inspired by the most important areas developed by the master: cinema, music, surrealism and cosmic horror.
In the section dedicated to cinema they will be exhibited the works that contributed to creating the myth of the “Alien cycle” but also those performed for Dunesthe never-made film by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Music is another fundamental element in Giger’s work that he created the covers of numerous albums by bands such as Debbie Harry, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Magma, Dead Kennedys and many others.
A section will then be reserved for surrealism, which Giger helped redefine in contemporary terms. Finally, space for cosmic horror: the literary philosophy developed by the writer HP Lovecraft, which Giger transformed into visual imagery, creating disturbing atmospheres that seduce and disorient us at the same time. (gp)
