至今罗曼有六个国际的画廊代理其作品，并为其工作。而罗曼的工作方法和媒介，并没有因此而改变，从现在到过去，他依旧使用着简朴日常的媒介和材料，依旧保持自己参与其中的乐趣和姿态。
介绍罗曼的工作始于对他作品的点滴认识，希望通过展览共享这些被保藏的感知。罗曼通常不喜欢过于庞大的现场和作品，他甚至有些故意地避免谈自己，哪怕是在1987年卡塞尔文献展上的大型现场「纸的行动」，也许让他有悔意。这是一个艺术家不断和这个世界调整的关系。他存在过，与作品的大小有关吗？他没有存在，他的作品都在无人处，或故意抹掉那些和世界的联系。他一直保持着一种个人的状态，有些作品也很自然的被混同于他的日常生活。罗曼的工作，从没有因为时间、经济的情况而发生改变，他通过最简单的方式，阐释着自己对这个世界的理解，通过对物质和精神——物化的尝试，去发现世界。
*特别鸣谢：今日美术馆张然女士、中央美术学院美术馆
（线上展厅由今日数字美术馆首次制作于2014年；2022年ARTEXB重新制作。）
The work of artist Roman Signer was first introduced to Chinese art academies towards the end of the 1980s, and soon gained broad recognition. His artworks employ various media, including gun powder, sand, water and time. At Documenta 8 (1987), his notion of sculpting time reached its peak in the presentation of Action with Sheets of Paper. Aside from temporal sculpture, his work has focused, since the 1970s, on the artist’s personal involvement with time and physical movement, on material transformation under pressure, as well as on personal expressions of memories and pain. When he gave up drifting in a canoe, perhaps because of a close friend’s death, he applied the canoe motif in many uncommon settings: the canoe is dragged on the ground, is thrown out from a flying jet, and is placed in many other similarly strange moments and contexts. He cycles slowly, slowly in his artworks. Perhaps his departure on a bicycle and the frequent appearances of the canoe, together depict the departure of humans, and the absurdity of objects.
Roman Signer’s work is presented through videos and other kinds of documentation. He can be seen as passing on the spirit which originated in video art, Fluxus and Dada. In addition, born in Appenzell and now living in the small Swiss town of St. Gallen, Signer inevitably lives a hermit-like life, with a self-derived worldview and value system, and artistic techniques that he continues to develop. In 1981, following the current of left-wing romanticism and liberalism, Signer visited China. This trip was frozen in time via a single photograph. When he came to China the second time, in the booming period of China’s new economy and art market, he was already over 70 years old.
Video and film are Signer’s most frequently used artistic media. The time period 1975 to 1989 witnessed the birth and death of a sort of ‘media age’. Signer mostly used a Super8 (8mm film) camera in his works during this period. The length and quality of the works he produced back then were, in part, due to specific technological limitations, especially in film technology. Because no individual recording systems were used, Signer’s film works empowered themselves with pure silence. Unlike a lot of artists who rely too heavily on media techniques, Signer attempts to find himself a free balance between media intervention and naturally occurring events, and to present mundane daily life through extremely simplistic methods. For instance, most of his works were created without audiences on site, only him and his camera assistants (his brother, friends, and later his wife).
Roman Signer’s artistic practices also echo the left-wing thinking that later led to his visit to China in 1981, as well as the photo taken in Beijing. Today, six international galleries act as agents for his work. However, Signer’s working methods and the forms of media he uses have never changed, despite his growing reputation. He still uses simplistic media and materials, staying committed to the pleasure of being fully involved in the making process.
The introduction of Signer’s work to China starts with investigations of his artworks. Through this exhibition, the curatorial team hopes to share with the public Signer’s memories, formerly boxed and preserved in archives and databases. Signer has never been a fan of large-scale events and artworks, and he intentionally avoids talking about himself. At Documenta 8, when he was in the art world limelight, he may have felt the level of attention was too much. Roman Signer is an artist who always contemplates on his relation to the world, and who always lives with self-reflections. He existed, in the sense that his artworks and their sizes are deeply related to the world; yet he never exists, in the sense that none of his artworks are presented in real time in front of an audience. He even deliberately wipes away traces of his, or his artworks’ connection to the world, and stays alone, stays in an individual state of being. This kind of ‘disconnection’ does not cause blunt fractures, but instead, it is a dissolving process into daily life. It is clear that Signer’s work has never changed due to shifting politics, economics and even time. He maintains simple methods of expressing his understanding of the world, re-discovering the world through materialised forms and through experiments with the spiritual and material.
*With special thanks to Jess Zhang of Today Art Museum and CAFA Art Museum.
(The online tour was first produced by Today Digital Art Museum in 2014. In 2022, ARTEXB reproduced it based on the first production.)
