Scheidegger & Spiess Roman Signer: Vernissage: Invitations for Exhibitions 1973-2008

Roman Signer is one of Switzerland's and Europe's internationally most highly recognised contemporary artists. He has created an enigmatic oeuvre of great individuality, distinguished by his subtle humour and his playing with a diverse array of materials, such as water, sand, objects of all sorts, explosives, but also with natural phenomenon like wind. Many of his sculptures and installations, pyrotechnical actions, vehicles flying from ski-jumps, painting radio-controlled model-helicopters etc. are transient but have been documented in videos and films. Roman Signer: Vernissage is published to mark the artist's 70th anniversary, looking at his work in a very particular way: Invitation cards for the openings of around 150 exhibitions of the past thirty-five years, making traceable the development of this extraordinary artist's work. These cards, but also advertisements for his exhibitions, reflect the time of their creation and form also an amusing and playful tour around more than three decades of recent art history. Roman Signer: Vernissage is a picture book with photographs, drawings, sketches for artistic experiments and actions, film and video-stills. The essay investigates the continuities, lines of development and focuses of Signer's oeuvre and how they are reflected in the presented invitation cards. Text in English and German.