Keywords:
Material properties
Ordinary objects
Time
Event
Place-making art
By chance, I saw Roman's photography in a second-hand art book store. Before that, I had only seen his installations and performance work. This album attracted me very much. I found a temperament similar to Richard's photography in them, which have similarity with my perspective when I observe the world.
In Roman Signer’s works, everyday objects appear as recurring motifs in new contexts, including specially prepared bicycles, flying buckets, dancing walking sticks, helicopters, and drones. The objects are not exhibited in their usual function, but in unusual and sometimes humorous arrangements. In his work, the art lies not in the fetishizing of the objects, but in their activation.
'Without love for them I couldn’t do anything with them. I cannot work with all objects; I need to have a relationship to them. I’m pretty restrictive that way. Today there are many artists engaged in tremendous material battles, using everything one possibly can. That’s not my way. "（Roman Signer 2020）
Different from Richard Wentworth's work. His understanding of how things are viewed includes consideration of time. Thus focused, speed, power, and chronology become tangible. Viewers can understand time as movement in space. Especially in waiting for the predictable and the rapid change, time can be experienced in expansion and compression. Physical forces-- explosive, water power, or motors as well as the force of gravity, have all become the medium of his work.
"Art is a language, and for me, technology is something elemental. I work with simple materials. I can strive for poetry with these materials. Technology itself is not that important. I use video, but I’m not a video artist. You, Armin, as a poet, connect words to form sentences, while I connect materials to articulate a statement." (Richard Wentworth 1984，P7）
"The connection is not intellectual; it comes out of my feelings. I like to try out these connections, but there is nothing systematic at all about my process. When I work with water for certain periods, though then something else comes along."
Roman gives me a feeling that he is like a curious little boy looking everywhere for something at hand and using the power of nature to make his own toys. He sees himself as an inventor of structures that turn suddenness into an event. He does not appear as the human subject perpetrating these comments, the viewer's imagination is once again left to its own devices.
Books and other resources
Ross Simonini. (2020, May 13). Walking on Ice: An Interview with Roman Signer. ArtReview, Features. From https://artreview.com/walking-on-ice-an-interview-with-roman-signer/
Roman Signer, 2006. Signer - Reisefotos. Peter zimmermann, Beat Wismer ed. Basel: Christoph Merian.
Sammlung Hauser und Wirth, 2003. Roman Signer. Michaela Unterdὅrfer ed. Switzerland: Hatje Cantz Verlag.
