Welcome to the Museum HR Giger Bar
IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
Javier Martínez de Pisón
The womb-like interior of the HR Giger Museum Bar is a cavernous, skeletal structure covered by double vertebral arches that crisscross the vaulted ceiling of an ancient castle. The feeling of being in this extraordinary environment is reminiscent of the biblical story of Jonah and the whale and conveys the feeling of literally being in the belly of a fossilized, prehistoric animal. But also the "Harkonnen" chairs with their backrests crowned by pelvic bones and the stone slabs engraved with strange hieroglyphs on the floor suggest that you have been transported to the remains of a mutated future civilization.
The bar and the museum that houses this unique architectural installation are the unmistakable work of Swiss surrealist artist H.R. Giger. Known for his Oscar-winning designs for Ridley Scott's classic film "Alien" (1980), Giger has left behind his airbrush paintings of the 70s and 80s to create a series of three-dimensional spaces in which his aesthetic views literally come to life.
While in his paintings he has vividly illustrated the emergence of what he sees as the next steps in the evolution of humanity - the symbiosis of man and machine into new forms of being - in his new sculptural and architectural works he allows us to participate in this.
The artist renovated a 400-year-old, four-story medieval castle high atop a hill in the picturesque Swiss town of Gruyères to create his museum, a labyrinthine structure with two-meter-thick walls that now houses the most comprehensive permanent exhibition of Giger's artwork spanning his 40-year career.
The wing of the castle that houses the museum bar has a truly organic look with its bone-colored furniture and impressive interior design. In order to preserve the atmosphere of the listed castle, Giger used a stone-like synthetic material to cast the bar elements.
At the beginning of the project," explains Giger in his Zurich studio, "I was fascinated by concrete because I thought that an ancient building like this needed stone, aged stone, and so I used a mixture of cement and fiberglass to get a stone-grey color for most of the interior elements. But when we tried to use it for the ceiling, it didn't work because the cast arches had too much weight."
The cast concrete surfaces of the furniture in the museum bar have been polished to such an extent that they feel as soft as skin. This reinforces the impression of being inside a once-living creature, sitting on something that is perhaps not quite so alive, but still very warm and enveloping.
Giger's art never fails to evoke a strangely unsettling feeling as he continues to address profound issues that resonate with us all, and in many cases he seems to anticipate our future not only as individuals but also as a species. His intellectual concerns on this level are matched only by the impact of his highly original works, his constant experimentation with different media and increasingly sophisticated execution.
Since the beginning of his artistic career, Giger has explored the traditional ambivalence of man towards the scientific advances that can change the nature of the human body. This issue has taken on a real urgency today with recent genetic engineering experiments, such as the possibility of human cloning, sparking a moral and philosophical debate. The detailed depiction of his 'biomechanoid' beings in his classic translucent airbrush works dates back to the late 1960s, but in his recent sculptures and installations they have taken on a new and uncanny physical form.
Etienne Chatton, founder of the International Center for Fantastic Art in Gruyeres, considers Giger to be the most important living artist who deals with his works of foreboding. "He is the only artist who has recognized the dangerous lure of genetically modified beings and linked them to our fundamental fears," says Chatton. "Giger's biomechanoids were conceived long before today's scientific advances."
Another recurring theme in Giger's work is his concern about overpopulation, a threat that must be overcome to ensure the survival of humanity. His now classic painting "Birth Machine" (1967) shows a detail of a gun in which the bullets are crouching, mechanical-looking babies. Giger recently recreated "Birth Machine" as a two-meter-high metal sculpture that greets visitors at the entrance to the Giger Museum.
Another "Birth Machine Baby", a "detail" from the larger sculpture, stands guard a few meters away and, much like the royal guards outside Buckingham Palace, poses with visitors throughout the day.
The museum bar, which took four years to complete, was opened on April 12, 2003 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a select group of invited friends, artists, collectors, staff and media representatives.
Guests arrived the day before for the long-awaited event, taking the opportunity to visit the museum beforehand and enjoy the rare privilege of sharing a private moment with the normally reserved artist, who was still working at the last minute on the careful lighting of the new bar. The next morning, the population of the small village of 300 literally doubled in a matter of hours with the arrival of visitors from near and far, from Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, France, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Chile, Israel and the United States. The day's program included another vernissage in the HR Giger Museum gallery for Swiss artist Martin Schwarz, the printing of two limited edition prints to commemorate the day, speeches and dedications, a special dinner and nightly projections of Giger's artworks on the museum's façade.