Lot 3490 - A213 Post-War & Contemporary - jeudi, 26. juin 2025, 15h00
H.R. GIGER
(Chur 1940–2014 Zurich)
Biomechanische Landschaft. 1976.
Acrylic on paper, fully laid down on panel.
Signed, titled, dated, with measurements and technical details, as well as with work number on the reverse: H.R Giger "Biomechanische Landschaft 76" Acryl 100 × 70 Werk Nº 319.
100 × 70 cm.
Provenance:
Exhibited:
Literature:
‘Within the world in which he operates, Giger occupies a unique place. His art forms a category of its own. The proof lies in the intensity of his work and in his imagination, its provocative and unsettling effect which I can only compare with the works of Hieronymus Bosch or Francis Bacon.’ - Ridley Scott
H. R. Giger's paintings move in a dark, intermediate world of the technological and the organic, of metal and body. His biomechanical landscapes are visionary nightmares - uninhabitable spaces traversed by tubes, skulls and machine-like figures. In works such as the two ‘Biomechanical Landscape[s]’ (lots 3490 and 3492), human and mechanical forms merge into an indissoluble whole, as if evolution itself had embarked on a new, post-human path. However, these landscapes are not backdrops but rather states in which a deep-seated moment of horror and scepticism towards the technologization of the world seems to manifest itself.
Giger's works are often created using the airbrush technique, as is the case with the two paintings presented here at auction (acrylic on paper laid on panel). This gives the surface of the works an eerily smooth, almost lifeless quality - the coldness of the machines meets the fragility of human anatomy; a contrast that makes H. R.'s pictorial worlds oscillate between fascination and discomfort. Giger's work is not mere illustration, but a psychogram of a mechanised future - disturbing, radical and dystopian.
H. R. Giger's paintings move in a dark, intermediate world of the technological and the organic, of metal and body. His biomechanical landscapes are visionary nightmares - uninhabitable spaces traversed by tubes, skulls and machine-like figures. In works such as the two ‘Biomechanical Landscape[s]’ (lots 3490 and 3492), human and mechanical forms merge into an indissoluble whole, as if evolution itself had embarked on a new, post-human path. However, these landscapes are not backdrops but rather states in which a deep-seated moment of horror and scepticism towards the technologization of the world seems to manifest itself.
Giger's works are often created using the airbrush technique, as is the case with the two paintings presented here at auction (acrylic on paper laid on panel). This gives the surface of the works an eerily smooth, almost lifeless quality - the coldness of the machines meets the fragility of human anatomy; a contrast that makes H. R.'s pictorial worlds oscillate between fascination and discomfort. Giger's work is not mere illustration, but a psychogram of a mechanised future - disturbing, radical and dystopian.
CHF 70 000 / 100 000 | (€ 72 160 / 103 090)
Vendu pour CHF 131 250 (frais inclus)