|
|
"SABOTAGE" sculpture manifesto by HR GIGER
The word "sabotage" comes from the French word "sabot" and means "to trample with wooden shoes." A sabot is a clog with a leather top. At the beginning of agricultural mechanization French farm workers threw their "sabotes" into harvesting and processing machines (which were taking their jobs), thereby blocking the complicated mechanics of the mowing and threshing machines and rendering them useless. For the sake of their labor, they engaged in "sabotage."
The State of Sabotage is manifested in a unique sculpture that serves as a monument to artistic vision, territorial free spaces and independencies. Sabotage mastermind Robert Jelinek invited the Swiss visionary and artist H.R. Giger to design the sculpture. H.R. Giger's sculpture-model consists of a pair of shoes cast in an iron/copper form and welded to a metal base. The sculpture will be installed at the highest point of Harakka Island. Visitors to the island can step into the shoes and, by wearing them, comprehend the island as space and merge with the ground. The unveiling of the sculpture will be accompanied by a musical live act by Philipp Quehenberger. The sculpture will remain forever on Harakka Island.
HR Giger is considered one of the last and most important representatives of fantastic realism. The artist, born 1940 in Chur (Switzerland), discovered the water pistol (airbrush) during the seventies, developed his typical style and in the following years created his most famous paintings as well as the large-format book Necronomicon, which served director Ridley Scott as a visual template for Alien, the internationally successful film of 1979 that also earned Giger an Oscar. Giger's record covers, which he created for Debbie Harry and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, are now considered to be some of the best in music history. Giger's neo-myths located in a bleak technological world are known less from his groundbreaking paintbrush originals than from wild adaptations, reproductions and plagiarisms at all levels and branches of the cultural chain of production, whether whimsical horror merchandise, music video accessories, bicep tattoos or cyber-games. As a favorite child of pop culture, teen posters and biker-wear, Giger was first recognized by "cultural studies" as a crossover phenomenon that could not be more contemporary.
Giger designed sculptures and furniture environments over the course of his entire career. Along with further film projects like Poltergeist II and Species, Giger collaborated with drug guru Timothy Leary, the Viennese actionist Günter Brus, and the surrealist Salvador Dali. In 1998 Giger opened his own museum in Chateau St. Germain in the Freiburg town of Gruyeres, which presents his most important paintings and sculptures from the last four decades.
|
