H.R. Giger ✕ Sorayama: Approaching, a two-man exhibit that opened Saturday at UCCA Lab in Beijing, takes viewers on a visual adventure to explore what the future may hold for mankind
Curated by Men Jiecong, the show, co-organized by UCCA Lab - a multi-disciplinary platform owned by UCCA Group, and COEXIST - a creative studio specializing in art, marks the first showcase of the art of late Swiss surrealist painter and sculptor H.R. Giger and contemporary Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama in China.
Running until March 24, the exhibit brings together 45 artworks and series from the two artists dating from the 1960s up to the present day. Viewers are invited to explore the utopia and dystopia created by Sorayama and Giger through a medley of sculpture, airbrush painting and installation.
Though Giger and Sorayama possess very different styles, they have explored the ideal of an organic fusion between the mechanical and biological, expressing a bold vision for the future of human existence, said the curator.
Giger, born in 1940, grew up fascinated with all things surreal and macabre, especially the imagery created by Gustav Meyrink, Jean Cocteau, Alfred Kubin and H.P. Lovecraft. His first major art book Necronomicon, published in 1977, drew the attention of director Ridley Scott who then hired him to create the titular character Alien in the 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien which won an Academy Award for visual design.
Giger's biomechanical style, characterized by nightmarish, meticulously detailed portrayals of women, creatures and extraterrestrial landscapes that are realized through various media including painting, sculpture, furniture and movie props, has enthralled millions of fans around the world.
"The way Giger melded flesh with the machine and displayed organs within mechanic skin is appalling yet mesmerizing," commented a visitor to the Beijing show.
Contrary to Giger's art that evokes post-apocalyptic fear, Sorayama's shiny, metallic feminine robots, inspire a longing for a utopian technological future where humans and robots live in harmony. In a 2021 interview, the Japanese artist likened his work and that of Giger to Eros and Thanatos, the gods of love and death in Greek mythology.
Born in 1947, Sorayama developed an interest in metallic things in elementary school by picking iron scraps from a lathe factory. He broke into the art scene in the early 1980s for his signature "sexy robot" series, featuring precisely airbrushed, erotic feminine robots clad in shiny chrome metal and placed in suggestive poses. Sorayama's sexy robot images are widely featured on adult publications and album covers such as Aerosmith's Just Push Play. In 1999, Sorayama also collaborated with Sony and designed "AIBO", the award-winning robotic pet, which is now in the permanent collection of MoMA in New York.
Previously exhibited together in a two-person exhibition that toured between Tokyo and Osaka in Japan from December 2020 to February 2021, Giger and Sorayama's works are brought together again for the Beijing show with a new narrative, new approach towards artwork presentation, and spatial design, to recapitulate the creative context and connections between the two artists' practices.
Unfolding in three chapters, the exhibit guides the audience in each section to compare the work of the two artists. In the first chapter, "Surrealistic Explorations, Fear and Fantasy", visitors may explore the early days of each artist's practice, looking back to understand the inspirations and motivations present at the beginning of their careers.
Chapter Two, "The Eve of Tomorrow, Between the Biological and the Mechanical", spotlights the two artists' organic combination of living organisms and machinery, introducing some of their most representative artworks. Among them are Necronom (2005), an updated version of Giger's initial design for the Alien; works from the Swiss master's iconic "Biomechanoid" series; Sorayama's Sexy Robot_life size seating model_B, a life-sized sculpture depicting a girl in a golden jacket, resembling the classic image of a motorcycle pin-up model; and his latest six-piece installation Sexy Robot Floating ver. 2, in which the silver metallic-skinned robots fly like birds.
Chapter Three, "Seeds of Pop Culture", illustrates the strong influence that the artists have had on different areas of popular culture, from sci-fi films to pop music and fashion. Harkonnen Capo Chair (1981), a throne that Giger designed for Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the would-be villain in Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1975 film Dune, and Sorayama's SONY AIBO Dog are on display in this section.
According to the curator, the Beijing exhibition's spatial design is inspired by the imagery of passageways in Giger's oeuvre, spacecraft in classic science fiction movies, and the structure of underground ant colonies. A gradually unfolding passage leads visitors into the exhibition space, with light and dark spaces opening on their left and right. As the twin threads of the exhibition intertwine amongst surreal scenery, viewers may experience the cohabitation of light and darkness, the links between yesterday and tomorrow, the entanglement of life and death, and the coexistence of death and desire.
During "Approaching", UCCA Lab will invite interdisciplinary artists, musicians, and scholars to present a wide range of public programs revolving around the exhibit's curatorial concept and the creative mediums of both artists.
