Roman SignerNeue Arbeiten /
New Works

An automatic lawnmower rings a little bell, a balloon drags a trail through the sand, a boat travels on barrels. With Roman Signer (*1938 in Appenzell) everything is in motion – without rules, one might ask, as his statement insinuates? No, the artist understands sculpture rather as a processual description of states, thus expanding the familiar three dimensions of objects by a fourth: time. A circumstance that has earned his works the designation “time sculpture.” As his operating means he often employs explosives, water or movement, so that he can also direct the experience of dealing with his artworks towards the experience of physical force and speed. Such a working method naturally generates great interest among spectators, for it is always a little reminiscent of an archaic power, as tense as it is crackling, that seems to inhabit this anarcho-laboratory, and what we love about it above all is that it can rumble and crash mightily. And yet Roman Signer’s works have long since found a prominent place in international events, for instance at the documenta in 1987, at the Skulptur Projekte Münster in 1997 and at the Expo in Hanover in 2000, as well as, most recently, in 2010 in the Herrenhäuser Gärten. The exhibition at the Kestner Gesellschaft thus presents an extremely well-known artist and his very latest works, which in this little volume accompanying a remarkable exhibition once again delight us with the poetry inherent in things and with the grotesque in everyday life.

Exhibition
Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover, 23/8 – 4/11/2018