Below information was submitted by Sarah Van Niewaal, Marketing Director, Rochester Art Center. You can contact her via phone 507.424.3305 or by email [1]
Rochester Art Center to Launch Largest Exhibit to Date
Roman Signer: Works
Rochester, MN – May 6, 2008 – The Rochester Art Center, Rochester Minnesota, is pleased to announce the exhibition Roman Signer: Works. The exhibition opens May 10, 2008 and runs through September 14, 2008. This will be the largest exhibition of a single artist to date for the Rochester Art Center, utilizing over 7,000 feet of gallery space. Conceived and developed in close collaboration with the artist, the exhibition includes new sculptures and installations created specifically for this presentation. Visitors will be welcomed to the Art Center by the outdoor installation Kieskegel und Kajak in the Jack and Mary Ann Remick Sculpture Garden.
The work of Roman Signer has continually challenged a traditional understanding of sculpture by using unconventional materials such as barrels, boots, rockets, water, kayaks, tables, bicycles, dynamite, and balloons. The Rochester Art Center exhibition also includes a piece made partially of ice that will be displayed in a walk-in freezer.
Kris Douglas, Chief Curator of the Rochester Art Center states “ the work of Roman Signer has the unique capacity to intrigue and delight viewers of every age. For over 30 years, this internationally recognized artist has created works that are technically remarkable, thought provoking, and often rather humorous. Signer simultaneously possesses a child-like sense of wonder and curiosity concerning the physical world as well as a sophisticated approach to creating objects.”
Helicopter with Spray Can (1997) and Bicycle with Wooden Beams (1997) are examples of Signer’s work. Signer has stated, “always in my work something is going to happen, is happening or has happened. Or could happen.” Both works ask the viewer to consider the relationship of cause and effect and imagine how they came into being.
Signer was born in 1938 in Appenzell, Switzerland and is regarded as one of the most important contemporary European artists today. Signer has participated in exhibitions around the world and has recently made the short list for the Hugo Boss Prize, administered by the Guggenheim Foundation, to be awarded in the fall of 2008. The winner will be exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Roman Signer: Works is supported by the canton of St. Gallen with support from Swisslos and by Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council.
Digital copies of photographs are available on request.
The Rochester Art Center is located at 40 Civic Center Dr. SE in Rochester Minnesota. Art Center hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $3 for the general public, $2 for seniors, and FREE for Rochester Art Center members, students and on Thursday. Public parking is available in off-street lots and the Civic Center Ramp (free for the first hour and after 5 p.m.) The Rochester Art Center is wheelchair accessible. For more information call 507.282.8629 or visit
their website [2].