• Vues d’installation / Installation views, Roman Signer, Malmö Konsthall, 2023
    Photo: Helene Toresdotter
  • Vues d’installation / Installation views, Roman Signer, Malmö Konsthall, 2023
    Photo: Helene Toresdotter
  • Vues d’installation / Installation views, Roman Signer, Malmö Konsthall, 2023
    Photo: Helene Toresdotter
  • Vues d’installation / Installation views, Roman Signer, Malmö Konsthall, 2023
    Photo: Helene Toresdotter
  • Vue d’exposition / Installation view, Roman Signer, Sculptures et une installation, Art : Concept, Paris, oct – nov, 2022. Courtesy the artist; Art : Concept, Paris. Photo by: Romain Darnaud
  • Vue d’exposition / Installation view, Roman Signer, Sculptures et une installation, Art : Concept, Paris, oct – nov, 2022. Courtesy the artist; Art : Concept, Paris. Photo by: Romain Darnaud
  • Roman Signer, Paddel, 2021. Ventilateur et pagaie / Fan and paddle. 150 × 180 × 180 cm (59 × 70 ⅞ × 70 ⅞ inches). 25 × 950 × 130 cm (9 ⅞ × 374 × 51 ⅛ inches). Courtesy the artist; Art : Concept, Paris. Photo by: Romain Darnaud
  • Tombé du ciel, Frac Franche-Comté, Besançon, 22 mai – 25 septembre 2022. Photo Blaise Adilon. Courtesy the artist and Art : Concept, Paris
  • Exhibition view, Calder Now, Kunsthal Rotterdam, 2021-2022. Courtesy of the artist and Kunsthal Rotterdam
  • Installation view, Moment.Monument, Aspects of contemporary sculpture, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, 2021
  • Installation view KUB Project, Roman Signer, Installation on Bielbach Bielerhöhe, Montafon, 2021
  • Exhibition view The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object, and Performance, Walker Art Center, 2020. Photo Pierre Ware. Courtesy of the artist and the Walker Art Center
  • Roman Signer,Sketch for a sculpture of 2004. Exhibition Roman Signer. Skizzen 1970-2020, Buendner Kunstmuseum, Chur, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and the museum
  • Installation view Roman Signer, Château de Montsoreau-Musée d’Art contemporain, 2019
  • Kabine, 2017. Cprint, 15 3/4 x 23 5/8 in., ed 10. Private collection MC
  • Kajak, 2014. Kayak, metal trunck, 21 1/4 x 47 1/4 x 31 1/2 in., ed 2. Private collection
  • Installation view, Roman Signer: Kitfox Experimental, KINDL – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst (Kesselhaus), Berlin, 2014
  • Installation view, Installation avec deux ventilateurs, Bund 18, Shanghai, 2013
  • Maison double, 2011-12, brass, 18 1/8 x 10 1/4 x 10 1/4 in.
  • Aktion in Sedrun, 2010, color photograph, 48 x 48 in., ed 6 + 2 AP.
  • Parapluie, 2010, umbrella, plexiglas, demineralised water, 36 5/8 x 7 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.
  • Beim Chef, 2009. Color photograph, 11 3/4 x 15 3/4 in., ed 3 + 3 AP.
  • Untitled, 2009, cardboard and glasses, variable dimensions.
  • Flussaufwärts, Bergelia, 2008. Colour print pasted on aluminium, 35 3/8 x 23 5/8 in.
  • Holzobjekt mit Uhr, 2008 wood, clock, 6 1/4 x 35 3/8 x 17 3/4 in.
  • Wagen, 2006, mixed media, variable dimensions.
  • Bateau pneumatique, 2006, dinghy, box, harpoon, variable dimensions.
  • Table fumeur, 2005, wooden table, wood and aluminium box, rocket, cigarette, 28 3/8 x 42 1/8 x 27 1/8 in.
  • Kajak, 2005, Barrel, cut kayak and water pump, 51 1/8 x 23 5/8 x 11 3/4 in.
  • Zelt, 2002, video DVD, 25 seconds.
  • Vier Räder, 2002. Cprint, 11 3/4 x 17 3/4 in, ed 10 + 3 AP.
  • Schallplatte, 2002, wood, vinyl, clay, paper.
  • Tente et Helicoptère, 2000, mixed media, variable dimensions
  • Bidon et aspirateurs, 1997, Barrel, vacuums, leaves variable dimensions
  • Leiter, 1995, color photograph, 19 7/8 x 13 3/4 in., ed 10 + 3 AP.
  • Schweben (To float), 1995, b&w photograph on barytine paper, 14 1/8 x 9 1/2 in., ed 10.
  • Schwarzes Tuch, 1994. B&W photography on barytine paper, polyptych of 6, 12 5/8 x 9 1/2 in each, ed 10. Public collection: Museum van Loon, Amsterdam/NL
  • Barrel, 1993 barrel, hoover, dried leaves, variable dimensions. Private collection FR
  • Action mit Fässern, 1992, b&w print, quadriptych, 15 3/4 x 12 in each. Private collection FR
  • Heliport, 1989-2018, blow up basin, helicopter, 19 5/8 x 47 1/4 x 47 1/4. in.)
  • Wagen mit Kohlensäuredruckflasche (chariot), 1985, wood, fire extinguisher, rope, rubber, 13 x 41 x 22 7/8 in. Private collection MC
  • 2 Ballone, Triptych, color photograph, 1983. 14 5/8 x 18 7/8 in, ed 10.
  • Bogen, 1978. C-print, 9 7/8 x 11 3/4 in., ed 10 + 3 AP. Private collection FR

Biography

Roman Signer was born in 1938 in Appenzel Switzerland. He lives and works in Saint Gallen, Switzerland. Since the mid-seventies, Roman Signer has showed and re-enacted paradoxes. The mini-shows and non-happenings generated by his sculptures, installations and performances and documented by his videos and photographs form a permanent questioning on the economy of entertainment. With a light approach, his work tackles modern concerns such as efficiency, performance or productivity as well as our deeply rooted obsession with functionality.

Renowned for his “Actions”, Signer has often been defined as a pyrotechnical artist or given the label of “explosion-artist”, but he refuses to be circumscribed by the abundant literature and many remarks circulating on his work. The body of work that he has created is in itself extremely versatile, encompassing various disciplines such as happening, sculpture, drawing, installation, photography and video.

Regardless of the chosen medium, the creative process often reveals, by means of a structured suspension in time, what is scarcely or very seldom visible. Signer’s skills are all turned towards the reproduction of a magic moment, almost ritualized by his work: the moment when slight transformation of shape and matter are possible. Signer combines the simplicity of everyday gestures and materials to the complexity of technical devices and physical phenomena, activated without the necessity of keeping them under total control. Signer’s presence is sometimes triggering and off-camera, while sometimes he turns into a real stuntman: the Sisyphus-like boulder pushing character of his own work.

His work is present, among others, in the following collections : Museum Of Old And New Art (MONA), Tasmania; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; FNAC, Paris-La défense; Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt/Main; Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, St. Gallen; Kunsthaus Zug, Zug; Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich; MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles; et dans de nombreux FRAC, Fonds régionaux d’Art Contemporain, dont le FRAC Ile-de-France, Paris.

Solo exhibitions include: Tombé du ciel, Frac Franche-Comté, Besançon/FR (2022); The little Art window, Gstaad/CH (2021) ; Skizzen, Museum of Fine Arts, Chur/CH (2020) ; New Sculptures, Videos and Installations, Kunsthaus Zug, Zug/CH (2019) ; Roman Signer, Film & Video: 1975-1989 and Now, Luxelakes – A4 Art Museum, Chengdu/ROC (2018) ; Le temps gelè / Die gefrorene Zeit, Centre de la photographie, Geneva/CH (2016) ; Roman Signer: Slow Movement, The Barbican Curve, London/UK (2015) ; High Line Channel 22, ‘Kayak’, New York/US (2013) ; Kunsthalle Mainz, ‘Attila Csörgo und Roman Signer’, Mainz/DE (2012) Art:Concept, Paris/FR (2011) ; Four rooms, one artist, Swiss Institute, New York/US (2010) ; Secession, Vienna/AT (1999) ; Swiss Pavilion, 48th Venice Biennale, Venice/IT (1999).

At the gallery

Video

Links

Artist’s website

Downloads

CV (pdf)Download
Press (pdf)Download