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200108: Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin
Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin
Roman Signer – Works from the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection in the Hamburger Bahnhof and loans
He who plays with the fire
One can say what one wants about Christian Flick. For example that it was not just his inner altruistic philanthropist that made him lend his collection to the Hamburger Bahnhof. It was not just his common civism, but also his common business sense, that convinced him to do so – knowing that the value of his treasures are most likely to rise and not to fall. Flick has proves to be the same cool mathematician and calculating strategist when trying to increase the value of his art capital as he was when he was increasing his investment capital. He is someone who exclusively buys into established products, art historically approbated, and guaranteeing a lasting value. He does not burn his money by speculating or investing in objects that are too contemporary and therefore have no future. This man definitely does not love risk.
Roman Signer, the Swiss solitaire, on whom Flick’s collection focuses, is in marked contrast to him. Signer is still a child, even if he is already 70. And like every child he loves to play. He is usually involved in a type of synthesis of absurd play and joyful science. These characteristics are based on his socialisation in the arts during the 60s; an era in which Neo-Dada became virulent and some artists began to slip into the role of scientists to attain real social relevance. In any case, both art movements aimed at uniting art with life. That is why Signer enjoys integrating commonplace objects into his own art system – rubber boots, kayaks, often things to which he has a personal relationship, and exposes them to the most absurd experimental configurations. He lets himself be pulled by a car in a kayak, right next to the waterway, across the riverside road or practices playing “battleships” while sitting in another kayak, or shoots a woollen hat from his head with a rocket that was attached to it, or launches another rocket, which one can only identify through its horizontal vapour trail, right through a forest.
These are the kinds of crazy games and experiments Signer undertakes and they all have an uncertain outcome. This uncertainty makes it most advisable that the majority of his adventurous actions are conducted in the absence of an audience; their distinct poetic charm is meant more for the camera.
Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin
10557 Berlin, Invalidenstrasse 50 – 51, until 27. 01. 2008
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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200108
Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
10557 Berlin, Invalidenstraße 50- 51
Tel: +49 30 266424242
http://www.smb.museum/museen-und-einrichtungen/hamburger-bahnhof/home.html
Öffnungszeiten: Di, Mi, Fr10-18, Do 10-20, Sa, So 11-18 h
Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
10557 Berlin, Invalidenstraße 50- 51
Tel: +49 30 266424242
http://www.smb.museum/museen-und-einrichtungen/hamburger-bahnhof/home.html
Öffnungszeiten: Di, Mi, Fr10-18, Do 10-20, Sa, So 11-18 h
