Roman Signer

Born in 1938 in Appenzell, Switzerland, he studied at the Schule für Gestaltung in Zurich and Lucerne from 1966 to 1971 and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1971 to 1972, before settling as an independent artist in St. Gallen. His practice uses water, wind, fire, and explosives as artistic material, generating time-based actions and installations governed by physical process. In 1986 he transformed the Kamor mountain above Appenzell into a volcano, burning a fuse over 35 days to ignite 200 gunpowder cones along a path to St. Gallen. In 1987 his Documenta contribution sent thousands of paper sheets through the air. In 1999 he represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale.