(Not) Blowing Air
Roman Signer : Orgelpfeife (2020) in the background Flaming Tape (2021) by Zivinas Kempinas
Roman Signer describes his installations as ‘useless inventions’. He makes them with everyday objects: an umbrella, a pair of boots, a chair, a table. By combining them with natural elements such as water, fire and wind, he transforms these ordinary, inconspicuous items in imaginative and surprising ways. There is nothing he enjoys more than experimenting with simple objects and blowing them up, smashing them into pieces or throwing them through the air and subsequently capturing that ‘accidental’ (yet meticulously planned) process in photographs or videos. The usual role of a physical object is of no interest to Signer. Instead, he transforms them by exposing them to the elements and giving them a new meaning that is unrelated to their original purpose.
For one of his more recent works, Orgelpfeife (2020), Signer came up with a new, alternative interpretation for one of those objects. In this simple but impressive sculpture of a dysfunctional element (this pipe can no longer be filled with air), the themes of sound and gravity return once again. Humour is a deciding factor in a large part of Signer’s oeuvre. He expresses it in the relationship between sudden outbursts of energy and relaxation, between a clearly defined form and formlessness, and between order and chaos.
Roman Signer and Calder
Many of Calder’s early mobiles were motorized, meaning that the successive movements of the different elements in these works were predetermined. The element of chance appeared in Calder’s work when he started making suspended mobiles in the early 1030s. In these abstract creations, forms relate to each other unpredictably and in an infinite number of ways. Later on, artists like Signer returned to this idea of science and poetry from that same intuition. With the work Hemd (1995) Signer created a delicate balance between an item of clothing ( a shirt) and a helium filled balloon that is attached to it – the movement is activated by a fan.
Poetry and Energetic Activation – text describing Roman Signer’s work in the superb exposition Calder Now which ran at Kunsthal Rotterdam in spring 2022.
pic of Flaming Tape: www.flickr.com/photos/145400672@N02/52003679667/in/datepo...
pic of Hemd: www.flickr.com/photos/145400672@N02/52005049354/in/datepo...
(Not) Blowing Air
Roman Signer : Orgelpfeife (2020) in the background Flaming Tape (2021) by Zivinas Kempinas
Roman Signer describes his installations as ‘useless inventions’. He makes them with everyday objects: an umbrella, a pair of boots, a chair, a table. By combining them with natural elements such as water, fire and wind, he transforms these ordinary, inconspicuous items in imaginative and surprising ways. There is nothing he enjoys more than experimenting with simple objects and blowing them up, smashing them into pieces or throwing them through the air and subsequently capturing that ‘accidental’ (yet meticulously planned) process in photographs or videos. The usual role of a physical object is of no interest to Signer. Instead, he transforms them by exposing them to the elements and giving them a new meaning that is unrelated to their original purpose.
For one of his more recent works, Orgelpfeife (2020), Signer came up with a new, alternative interpretation for one of those objects. In this simple but impressive sculpture of a dysfunctional element (this pipe can no longer be filled with air), the themes of sound and gravity return once again. Humour is a deciding factor in a large part of Signer’s oeuvre. He expresses it in the relationship between sudden outbursts of energy and relaxation, between a clearly defined form and formlessness, and between order and chaos.
Roman Signer and Calder
Many of Calder’s early mobiles were motorized, meaning that the successive movements of the different elements in these works were predetermined. The element of chance appeared in Calder’s work when he started making suspended mobiles in the early 1030s. In these abstract creations, forms relate to each other unpredictably and in an infinite number of ways. Later on, artists like Signer returned to this idea of science and poetry from that same intuition. With the work Hemd (1995) Signer created a delicate balance between an item of clothing ( a shirt) and a helium filled balloon that is attached to it – the movement is activated by a fan.
Poetry and Energetic Activation – text describing Roman Signer’s work in the superb exposition Calder Now which ran at Kunsthal Rotterdam in spring 2022.
pic of Flaming Tape: www.flickr.com/photos/145400672@N02/52003679667/in/datepo...
pic of Hemd: www.flickr.com/photos/145400672@N02/52005049354/in/datepo...