H.R. GIGER

good call, definataly one of my favourite artists.

when i opened this thread, i immediately hit 'stop', so i wouldnt have to wait for the annoying ass pictures to load and i could move straight into discussing how fucking wack i think this shit is. i'll give the guy credit for having his own style and for doing it well (technically speaking), outside of that though, i cant fucking stand it, the people that like stuff like this are the same ones that think nas beat jay z and that gays shouldnt be able to marry. fucking moooooor-ons.

seriously i have two words for anyone that likes bullshit like this: "eyebrow piercing".

seeks/thank you, goodnight.

Yea, i can understand where your coming from.. you know, lumping people into catagorys and all - sort of how i am with white people and dread locks. Fuck em.

i whole heartedly agree (and always have).

;)

i know im being stereotypical, but i have never met a single person that really liked giger, that has any clue as to what 'quality' or 'interesting' art looks like. this shit is like 3d pieces. people can appreciate the technical aspect so they confuse that with genuine worth.

this shit is just annoying, you like shitty 'art'...sorry dog.

:(

Nah, see that's the thing. I didnt state that i was a fan of GIGER, i just put up the thread.. in fact im indifferent to quite a few of the "artist's" who's thread's ive put up I.E. Sam Flore's and Dave Kinsey. I was just repsonding to your statement about all of his fan's being opposed to gay marriage etc. Seemed like you jumped the gun there. As far as the art that i like being any good, thats not really anything i worry about, im not spending money to support the people who i start thread's for - just putting up one more thing for people to look at if they choose to.

Oh, and im not big on 3d pieces either, bit pretentious - i prefer paint rollers.

*Im apologizing ahead of time for spelling errors.

as eyebrow piercing as this is ... he has been doing it quite a bit longer than the goth scene has been around.

this guy was one of my biggest insprations when i was yonger .. but i dont pay too much attention to him anymore. kinda seen one seen 'em all type thing to me these days.

...his shit is cool, i can mos definitely appreciate the technical skill...i dig it ,but it ain't all that

Im a fan of his, i like his viewpoint on things and yes the technical aspect of his work is great. when he first started painting with the style he's best known for there was nobody out there doing anything like it, it's the transcending aspect of art in a sense, for example , his canvas's some of them are shitty, ill agree with that, the subject matter is lame, but then again there's the way he did it, there's the way he made it come up that gives you another insight into what you are capable of with a brush.

Plus he created Alien, come on.

He's been a HUGE influence on me, and still amazes me technically, but I've moved on thematically. Dude is a much better concept artist/stylist than he is a fine art painter.

^agreed.

Originally posted by seeking@Nov 19 2004, 02:04 PM

the people that like stuff like this are the same ones that think nas beat jay z and that gays shouldnt be able to marry. fucking moooooor-ons.

seriously i have two words for anyone that likes bullshit like this: "eyebrow piercing".

 

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:nope: that isn't me at all.

i like his more abstract peices.

i think the guy has a lot of really interesting concepts going on in the work.

(as mams said)

the juxtaposition of sex and violence in a non-gory way makes the stuff really erotic i think.

and the fact that the figures in the paintings are kind of enslaved without being degraded.

also the whole purity v pornography.

the subject matter is tough to pull off,

and i think as a painter he's managed to thrust it (ha) into the crux of the work without being cheesy.

the endless imitation of geiger when movies are cooming up with new aliens and monsters has gotten stale.

Originally posted by symbols@Nov 23 2004, 07:51 PM

i like his more abstract peices.

i think the guy has a lot of really interesting concepts going on in the work.

(as mams said)

the juxtaposition of sex and violence in a non-gory way makes the stuff really erotic i think.

and the fact that the figures in the paintings are kind of enslaved without being degraded.

also the whole purity v pornography.

the subject matter is tough to pull off,

and i think as a painter he's managed to thrust it (ha) into the crux of the work without being cheesy.

 

the endless imitation of geiger when movies are cooming up with new aliens and monsters has gotten stale.

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well said !!

i was kidding about the gay marriage thing. i mean, come on, it was preceeded by a reference to rap beef.

that eye-brow piercing shit was on point though. ha.

my problem with giger is that it's just 'too easy'. it's too easy to like, too easy to be impressed by, and ultimately too easy to grow out of. he's like escher. when you're 15, it's incredible, when you're 25, it was a cool idea that you're bored of now. it's sort of one of the pitfalls of doing something so reliant on a unique technique. it becomes difficult to expand because the manner in which it's painted is more important than the subject matter. dude could paint a pig giving a handjob to a giant cockroach, and as long as he makes it look carved out of stone or built of iron, it will be easily overlooked. once you've seen one giger, you've basically seen them all.

okay, that may be true for the vast majority of geiger's work..but couldn't a cynical viewer say that about many artists? monet, degas or dali for example

i think some of his stuff is different..some of it's played out though

i was trying to decide if i should include dali with escher actually, but ultimately i opted not to because while the stuff he is more known for definitely fits my previous description, he has a ton of other, less known work that is nothing like his most famous stuff.

you're right though, most artists work can be lumped into pretty much one catagory or another. the difference i think, atleast to me, is that each of those artists has a couple of real stand out pieces that really strike a chord with people. i dont see that in giger at all. every piece is just as interesting (or disinteresting) as the next. obviously that's just my take on it, but even in reading peoples responses, almost all of them (save for yours) praised his technique and little more. it's like the girl on myspace with 500 friends and 1243 comments saying nothing but how hot she is. she might be an awesome person, but obviously most people aren't into her for that reason.

having said that, my favorite artist, atleast for the last few years, is barnett newman. a simple google search will probably lead most people to start screaming hipocrit, since not only does all his work look similar, it's also so insanely minimal that it almost ceases to exist. i know the fine line i'm walking here by condeming giger, yet finding so much in newman, but to me, i look at it this way: the more vague something is, the more it leaves open for interpretation. if someone can create a work that evokes emotion without assigning it to a specific story, that's a pretty incredible feat. all my favorite art reminds me of something from my own life, be it past or present or future. it's sort of like in cartoons when the guy on the deserted island looks at his friend and sees a turkey. i do the same thing with art. my eyes are looking at the piece, but my mind is seeing something else and my body is feeling something else. i dont know if that makes any sense, but to me, giger tells too much of a story (yet really tells nothing). i don't even have to look at it to know what i'll find; so much detail that it traps any potentional emotion inside of it.

whatever, i know it's all personal preference. if someone really finds something special in giger, that's dope. i'd love to have them explain it to me. i'd like to think that there is more to his work than fancy application, but up until this point, i havent found it.

i'm not trying to 'argue' my side btw, just give enough of a response that the next person can approach it just as indepthly from another perspective.

I enjoy his work. I see what you are saying seeking but I think you are not giving the guy credit for putting this stuff out when no one else was thinking about it. Or maybe you are and just don't care. Either way I like it. I like it because of the themes of horror, science fiction, and sex that you don't see done at that level of quality and originality. I like the mixture of organic and industrial beings/textures/worlds that to me make the images seem alive.

All of that works as much for it as it does against it, because unlike a more abstract painter you don't have to do much thinking when looking at one of his pieces, it's pretty much all layed out for you to digest. If you compare it to say, a Basquit or Jasper Jones or whoever, Giger can seem almost shallow because having such a defined subject matter waters down the emotions put into making art. But I don't look at his art like I would something hanging in the Musuem of Fine Arts. To be honest I don't look at it much at all anymore.

Originally posted by fermentor666@Nov 24 2004, 02:47 PM

To be honest I don't look at it much at all anymore.

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and that's my ultimate point. once you've outgrown the awe of the technique, there's very little left. there is some interesting social commentary, but IMO, it's almost completely lost in the translation. it's hard for me to look at some bio-mechanical alien women with machine guns and take it seriously, ya know? even if it does have a valid point behind it, still...it's like 50 cent preaching about voting.

good post btw.

When Alien came out on the big screen, of course I went. Blown away by not only the intense supsense of what was being labeled a horror film (which it moste certainly was not) but also blown away by the props and title character. This led me to do research and investigate. I bought trading cards of the movie in hopes of seeing behind the scenes images. I went to magazine shops and flipped through page after page of Starlog and Sci-Fi in hopes to find out some info on this HR Giger. (Which is pronounced Giger as in eager, not Giger as in tiger) Not only did I find some goods in the trading cards but I also found some goods in the magazines, which led me to a few books he out at that time. Which took me on a whoie seperate journey.

Yea, as a youngin I was blown away by his work. The more I saw the more I liked. Though even then I felt once you had seen something like "The Spell" you had seen parts one and two and three and so on. I saw depth in his work that I didn't find in others work. Maybe I just wasn't searching for it before but there was something that obviously grabbed me about his work. (And befor eyou go there, Seeking, this was pre-goth days for me) I had been taken by other artists before, Barnett being one of them along with Francis Bacon but there was definitely something about his work that I had to keep getting more of. To this day I still think everything he did for his New York City series has been slept on. The subtle abstract feel is amazing. Instead of blocks of color he chose to do blocks of landscapes to create landscapes. And in the total scheme of that landscape were more landscapes. With dirt and grime and technology crammed in the creases. You don't see it but you know it's there. And what you can see you overlook it. Like the city itself. He also did a series of drawings of the image posted above... I think the series was called "Passages", and he did something like 30 paintings that were all of the same image, but different interpretations. That idea was amazing to me. Not to say it had never been done before but the way he did it was what got me. It was like all these years of schooling and I never understood how to properly use there, they're and their... along comes someone who I admire and explains it to me as I'm sure my teachers always had, but now I got it. What I'm saying is Giger's work was what I needed to understand what I wanted to do with art. Not copy him or do deep, dark and sadistic imagery but in general what I wanted to do. Follow my own lead. His work, over several years, has allowed me to make the distinction between being an artist and being my own artist. Especially within Graffiti. Which is how I feel one should be inspired anyway. By an artists actions not his work.

I can admit that I no longer thirst for his work like I did even ten years ago. But I'm also a huge fan of Bacon and Newman and I rarely pick up their books either. I guess it's kinda like Seeking said, you are touched by the art of the moment. And you tend to hold that dear to that piece or that artist. (Well, you didn't use gay words like I did, but in a sense that's what you meant... I think) Personally, I still really like his work. I defend it against naysayers because it's close to me and what I do now. Though his paintings are what he's most known for, I tend to admire his black and white drawings from the sixties way more. Especially all the labrynth pieces he was doing. I did grow tired of the all the paintgins of his wife Li... though I know how artists are when something, or someone comsumes your life. It reflects in your work.

Though you may or may not care for his work, let's give credit where credit is due. The guy single handedly changed the face of Science Fiction films. And picked up countless imitators in the art world... and I mean world. That's a measurement for success in my book. Even if he were to never have sold a piece... he made his mark. Show anyone of those images to a group of people and I guarentee you that one of five will either know the artist or be familiar with the work. How many of us can say that about ourselves?

is this the nyc thing you were talking about?

i was going to quote it earlier but forgot to.

i like this one, because it lacks the contrived imagry i find in the others. no sci-fi porn bitches, no machine guns, just a 'feeling'. i like feelings. i also like 'holding things dear' and other gay adjectives. ;) jk.

i gues joker kind of blows my 'only teenage stoners still like giger' idea out of the water. then again, dude also likes marilyn manson, and i dont question that, so i think that he's probably approaching things from a bit of a different perspective than your average giger (or mm) fan. i think most people probably see the skulls and the tits, recognize they could never paint like that, and stop looking right there. i know i saw all of that and stopped looking. of course i also saw the guy from korn with his giger mic stand and i thought...ewww, tht guy still has eyebrow pierced, gross.

thanks for taking the time to explain that joker. ha. calling you joker makes me feel silly.

so who should i try and tear apart next?

thats some amazing stuffs...

Originally posted by seeking@Nov 24 2004, 05:45 PM

is this the nyc thing you were talking about?

i

 

so who should i try and tear apart next?

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Yes, I believe that is part of the New York series. There are way better paintings from that book but unfortunately I don't own a copy anymore as it was stolen during a party. (Never own anything nice until you own a home and realize parties are for idiots) Well, even if I had it my scanner isn't big enough to scan anything in the book. Anyway, yes... that series is what really got me about his work. Sure, I like all the other crud too but the NYC pieces are by far my favorite of his body of work.

You could always pick on Motherwell... or fuckin' Jasper Johns.

yes really good... i like his pen work alot though

its different when you're seeing it on the computer and when u see it up close...all his shit is huge...theres a pic of some guy standing next to a giger painting..im sure if u stand by it it feels way more overwhelming and creepier then when u see it on the screen

iono... i like his work....aliens was good...at least from the design point of view

Originally posted by Joker@Nov 25 2004, 08:18 AM

You could always pick on Motherwell... or fuckin' Jasper Johns.

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i'd neverseen motherwell before just now.

that guy sucks.

there were a couple pieces that if 'remixed' them, i'd like, but as they stand, most is garbage.

ha.

i'd seen a couple jasper johns (the flags) but wasn't too familiar with his stuff.

he sucks too.

ha.

it's interesting to me that i can completely 'feel' and understand one minimalist piece, but then the next i find absolutely zero artistic merrit in.

joker,

since despite my incredulous tone, i really know nothing about art, ha, how about you start this off and give me something to reply to. doing a new art critique each week could be cool i think.

Originally posted by seeking+Nov 26 2004, 06:45 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (seeking - Nov 26 2004, 06:45 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-Joker@Nov 25 2004, 08:18 AM

You could always pick on Motherwell... or fuckin' Jasper Johns.

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i'd neverseen motherwell before just now.

joker,

since despite my incredulous tone, i really know nothing about art, ha, how about you start this off and give me something to reply to. doing a new art critique each week could be cool i think.

[/b]

I have a video recording from Public Broadcasting that a friend gave me ages ago. I really only walked away from the show with one painting having blown my socks off. It inspired several of my first "Graffiti" canvases as well. The painting was massive and all yellow with a splash of black and white. Very organic and very minimalists abstract. Yep, me all the way. Other than that one painting... I got nothing.

I'd love to pick an artists every week for critique... good idea. I hope you like architects...

Originally posted by Joker+Nov 27 2004, 01:02 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Joker - Nov 27 2004, 01:02 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>

Originally posted by seeking@Nov 26 2004, 06:45 AM

<!--QuoteBegin-Joker@Nov 25 2004, 08:18 AM

You could always pick on Motherwell... or fuckin' Jasper Johns.

Quoted post

 

i'd neverseen motherwell before just now.

that guy sucks.

there were a couple pieces that if 'remixed' them, i'd like, but as they stand, most is garbage.

ha.

 

i'd seen a couple jasper johns (the flags) but wasn't too familiar with his stuff.

he sucks too.

ha.

 

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I'd love to pick an artists every week for critique... good idea. I hope you like architects...

[/b]

hating on all my favorites, johns, motherwell, at least joker was inspired by a motherwell painting. i am really down for this weekly crit of artists. it think it would be good and i dont know jack about architechture but i'm down to learn.