HR Giger

Hans Rudi Giger riding his ghost train in his garden in Oerlikon, Switzerland, 1996.

HR Giger

Since childhood, Hans Rudi Giger had been fascinated by ghost trains. Those trains in the funfairs that whisk you away through frightening worlds, brushing past supernatural creatures, crashing through doors  revealing more unknown terrors. It seems that Giger had decided that his life would take that same hallucinatory track seen in his dreams, nightmares and premonitory visions of altered organisms and biomechanical monsters. He fathered Alien, who won him an Oscar, then pursued the delirious chase of his obsessional and visionary life’s work. Yesterday, Giger passed through another door, the one that frightens us the most. And it’s anybody’s guess where his runaway train will take him; but for having known him, I’m guessing that he’s full-steam ahead, holding on tight with a giant grin on his face.