Roman Signer ‘Sculpture’ in Chinese Lecture & Book Launch Ceremony

Guest: Corinne Schatz, Li Zhenhua

Date: 2014-10-19 16：00 ~ 2014-10-19 18：00

Address: Chronus Art Center (Room101, Bldg18, NO.50 Moganshan Rd, Shanghai)

LANGUAGE: German (with Chinese translation)

reservation via membership@chronusartcenter.org (please indicate your full name, contact information and the number of reservation).

About Lecture:

The Swiss artist Roman Signer (born 1938) has expanded the notion of sculpture by the element of time and transformation. In his works different objects, often taken from everyday use, like tables, boots, buckets, or bicycles meet natural and artificial energies that take a strong impact on them. There might be a poetic situation like a table carried away into the air by red balloons only to fall down back to earth and break into pieces when the the balloons burst. Buckets filled with water explode to form a fountain for only a few seconds. Film and photography play a crucial role, as his sculptures often only exist for a very short time. Thus Roman Signer actually forms time itself, the transformation of objects and materials being seen as a sculptural event at each moment of its development in time and space. In his investigations of the material world, in the little events he creates for these everyday objects humour and poetry go hand in hand, creating spectacular and humouros events just as often as touching moments of beauty – when for example a white table floats ever so lonely towards bizarre iceformations on a lake in Iceland.

About Corinne Schatz
Author of ‘Roman Signer Sculpture’

Studied art history, English literature and modern German literature at the University of Zurich. Her master’s work focused on Henri Cartier-Bresson.

From 1985 to 1996 she was a member of the curatorial team at the Kunsthalle St. Gallen, of which she was also a co-founder. From 1988 to 1995 she served as a research fellow and co-curator at the Museum of Art in St. Gallen, and, beginning in 1988, as a lecturer at the St. Gallen School of Art and Design. From 1996 to 1998 she was a co-curator at the Foto Forum in St. Gallen, and from 2002 to 2012 member of the curational team and executive board of visarte.ost (organisation of professional artists in Eastern Switzerland). Corinne Schatz lives in St. Gallen, where she works as a writer, curator and lecturer. Her publications include works on Roman Signer, Silvie & Chérif Defraoui, Jean Odermatt, Teres Wydler, Nesa Gschwend, Josef Felix Müller, among others. She is president of the art foundation of St. Gallen (St. Gallische Kulturstiftung) and member of the board of Sitterwerk Foundation.

About Li Zhenhua (CN/CH)
Co-Curator of the exhibition ‘Roman Signer: Video & Film 1975 and Now’

Li Zhenhua has been active in the field of art since 1996. His practice mainly concerns curation, art creation, and project management. Since 2010 he has been the nominator for the Summer Academy at the Zentrum Paul Klee Bern (CH), as well as for The Prix Pictet (CH). He is a member of the international advisory board for the exhibition “Digital Revolution” to be held at the Barbican Centre in the UK in 2014. He has edited several artists’ publications (e.g. Yan Lei, Hu Jieming, and Feng Mengbo). A collection of his art reviews was published under the title “Text” in 2013.