Roman Signer

Signer’s work explores the relationships between sudden energy releases and calm, between order and chaos, and the existence of form in the apparently formless. Physical forces like gravitation and motor energies are both a challenge to the artist and the instruments he relies on to realize his sculptural ideas. In his work, classical sculptural materials have been usurped by sand, water and ordinary objects. Meticulous planning and incalculable chance interact, generating ‘poetic’ visual installations with their own highly developed individual aesthetic. Signer’s artistic explorations of the world around us and its phenomena changes our perceptions and even seems to alter reality. Often the mere indication of a sudden or possible release of energy is enough to transmogrify a simple configuration of objects—a movable wooden arm and a rocket—into a wittily succinct visual commentary on the relationship between cause and effect.

His work has been presented in numerous museums and galleries worldwide and has been selected for prestigious international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, where he represented Switzerland in 1999, Skulptur Projekte Münster (1997) as well as Documenta 8 in Kassel where during ‘Action in front of the Orangerie’ he catapulted 350.000 sheets of paper into the air simultaneously with an explosive charge.