Pre-Alien work of HR Giger on display at Swiss museum

The exhibition is part of the Giger Year, which honours the artist on the tenth anniversary of his death. Keystone-SDA

Youthful works by Alien creator HR Giger will be shown at the Graubünden Museum of Fine Arts from Saturday.

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Photographs from the artist’s youth in Chur, eastern Switzerland, are also on display until November 24. The exhibition is part of the Giger Year, which honours the artist on the tenth anniversary of his death.

As the art museum explained at the opening of the exhibition, numerous photographic documents from Giger’s youth in the cantonal capital have surfaced in his estate. They were published in a book for the first time on the tenth anniversary of his death and are now being presented at the Kunstmuseum. The personal photos are complemented by works and objects from the youthful years of the world-famous artist.

The exhibition tells many stories that show a surprising view of an artist’s youth, the museum’s artistic director, Stephan Kunz, told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA.

‘Too one-sided an image’

The public had previously had too one-sided an image of the creator of the monster in the Alien films. “HR Giger lived in very different worlds, knew the fine game as well as fierce rock ‘n’ roll and jazz,” Kunz said.

On the one hand, the photographs provide an insight into Giger’s middle-class, family environment. “They show expressive images from the early years in Chur, when HR Giger gave free rein to his creativity and set up his legendary ‘Black Room’ in his parents’ house,” Kunz explained.

The exhibition shows developments that made many things possible and “only seem logical in retrospect”.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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