Roman Signer
«Action with Sheets of Paper»

documenta 8 propagated a large number of impressive video installations, and also a sizeable performance section. The Swiss concept artist and performer's trade marks are actions with explosives, working in the field of tension between sculpture and event. «My works are like traps that I set for nature, so that she can intervene in the creative act as a partner, and perfect it.» He is usually both the initiator and the ‹guinea pig.› For example, at documenta 8 he blew up the fastenings on a great pipe that was hanging over him so that they crashed down around him and he disappeared inside the tube. Most of Signer's actions are absolutely minimal and extremely brief, and also conceptually absurd. To conclude documenta, Signer once more operated on a much larger scale, using the explosive nature of ‹rapid change.› He blew up thousands of sheets of paper to form a wall of white rain that formed a poetic concluding image in time, somewhere between suddenness and slow dispersal.

Rudolf Frieling