HR Giger. 40th Ed.
£19.80£23.80 (-17%)
“At its essence, Giger’s art digs down into our psyches and touches our very deepest primal instincts and fears. His art stands in a category of its own. The proof of this lies in the intensity of his work and imagination, which I can only compare to Hieronymus Bosch and Francis Bacon in their powers to provoke and disturb.” ―Ridley Scott
Swiss artist HR Giger (1940–2014) is most famous for his creation of the space monster in Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror sci-fi film Alien, which earned him an Oscar. Yet this was just one of the most popular expressions of Giger’s biomechanical arsenal of creatures, which consistently merged hybrids of human and machine into images of haunting power and dark psychedelia. The visions drew on demons of the past, as well as evoking mythologies for the future. Above all, they gave expression to the collective fears and fantasies of his age: fear of the atom, of pollution and wasted resources, and of a future in which our bodies depend on machines for survival.
Following the SUMO-sized monograph which was begun shortly before the artist’s unexpected death, this affordable anniversay edition pays homage to Giger’s unique vision. The book shows the complete story of Giger’s life and art, his sculptures, film design, and iconic album covers as well as the heritage he left us in his own artist’s museum and self-designed bar in the Swiss Alps. In an in-depth essay, Giger scholar Andreas J. Hirsch plunges into the themes of the artist’s oeuvre while an extensive biography draws on contemporary quotes and Giger’s own statements.
About the series
TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program―now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.
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Additional information
| Publisher | TASCHEN, Multilingual edition (20 Mar. 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | Multilingual |
| Hardcover | 512 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 3836587025 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-3836587020 |
| Dimensions | 16.5 x 4 x 22.5 cm |
by Jason Duval
Fabulous insight into the life of the late great artist H R Giger
by Kindle Customer
The book is compact in size, dense but coffee table size. The text is bilingual so it doesnt become a long read despite its 500 pages of colourful prints. Worth the money for keeping a lot of Gigers imagination in your hands
by Danny
Probably not to every ones taste but that is Giger’s art, the book is well organised with some of his best work on display the creepy and macabre
Its a great conversation starter when people come over
by Mr. T. J. Seelig
What can I say, an amazing book by an amazing artist.
by Illogical loser
For all collectors of Gigers work you must purchase this book. For the price and amount of work displayed within this incredible tome the price is just a steal. Taschen always delivers on beautifully crafted and bound collections but this surpassed all my expectations. If you want to get to know more and are new to Gigers magnificent work this is a perfect starter book to purchase. It has a complete range of his work from his early years right up to those he worked on up until his untimely death in 2014….RIP. As a completest of everything that has been released regarding this wonderful artist I will honestly say this new book fits my collection perfectly. I have a feeling this book like so many of his other collections will definitely rise in price so get it now at this give away amount.
by Mr. T. J. Seelig
It’s a great collection of course. Amazon state RRP is £25. But price printed on back of book is £20 as of July 2022
by DAVID HEYWOOD
So my wife bought me this as a gift (she has prime on her account) as I’m recently getting more into art and she knows how much of a Giger fan I am. Unfortunately, it’s only an okay book that is held back by some pretty significant flaws. Starting with the dimentions. It’s quite small, barely larger than my hand in length and width. Maybe Taschen thought they could compensate the short length with some girth… as it’s also a very thick book compared to other art books (see pics).
Now, we all appreciate a good bit of girth most of the time, but for an art book it leads to some serious issues. Namely, whenever Taschen decided to display a piece over both pages, the middle part of the image gets eaten up into the spine and is lost to view, even when splaying the book as flat as possible. Now, while never ideal, it isn’t quite as much of an issue on some of Giger’s more abstract and/or landscape pieces, but Taschen have done this to a LOT of the pictures in this book. Many of which are Giger’s hyper-detailed works where the middle of the composition is, well, the centrepiece of the image and what Giger is drawing your eye to and wants you to see the most (see pics). This makes it impossible to pore over every detail and really absorb and see the artwork in its entirety, which is why we buy and look through these art books first and foremost, right?
Additionally, not only is this double-page spread used with pieces where the very centre is the focal point of the image, but also for most of Giger’s most famous works, such as the Necrom series that inspired the Alien films, and his concept work for the cancelled Dune film (see pics) – arguably THE primary reason many fans will know about and be drawn to this book in the first place. Other quirks of the layout in this book include of lot of blank pages and unused space, where a single-page image will be accompanied by a blank white or black page facing it. Other times, an image will be almost contained to a single page, but for some reason a third, or a fourth, or a fifth of the image will be placed over onto the facing page, again leading to part of the image getting eaten up by the spine (see pics) – why?
A less pressing issue caused by the thickness of the book that’s still worth a mention; when reading through Hirsch’s short essay sections, which are interesting and insightful in-and-of themselves, there will often be description and commentary on a particular piece of art with a reference page number. Now, this is often hundreds of pages away, meaning you have to stop reading and flip your way to the image and back again when reading through, while the pieces that are on the same pages as the essay descriptions are unrelated. This breaks the flow when reading, and more than once the referenced page number was incorrect, meaning that what was being desctribed in the essay passage didn’t even make any sense when flipping to the linked image.
Speaking of Hirsch’s essay sections, these flaws caused by the dimentions of the book can be attributed to Taschen’s decision to make this book multilingual. It’s even listed as ‘Multilingual Edition’… leading one to believe there are other, non-multilingual editions on offer, right? Nope. This means you essentially are buying the same written sections of the book three times over; English, German and French. Again – why? This further pads out an already thick book, leading to the problems described above.
The only reason I can think of as to why these compromises were made is to keep the price down, which may be fine for very casual Giger fans or people with only a mild or passing interest in actually looking at the artwork. But many fans, who will be drawn to this book to finally own these striking and provocative pieces for themselves and to be able to pore over them in detail, may be disappointed and left wanting to see them displayed properly formatted in more appropriate dimensions. As I was.
This is an easy fix, Taschen. So for the 50th anniversary edition, I strongly suggest you stick to single-language editions, slimming down the girth and allowing you to increase the height and width instead. This should allow for a much better formatting and display of the artwork while keeping the price affordable.
by Stephen Fairweather
H.R. Giger’s disturbing and innovative art in a very thick and well made book (in multiple languages)
How they manage to sell a book of this quality so cheaply is kind of puzzling to me
I’d recommend this book for over 18s only though – a lot of the biomechanical art (famous from Aliens etc) he did is grotesquely sexual (though I’d be very surprised if anyone found any of it a turnon)