Le Point d'Ironie

Since a couple of years we are happily distributing Le Point d'Ironie, a free publication that "originates from a talk between agnès b., Christian Boltanski and Hans Ulrich Obrist in 1997. Six to eight issues are published each year. Each of them is made by an artist who makes it his own and brings it up to a singular work of art. By means of its gratuitousness as well as of its size and circulation, the Point d'Ironie is an atypical periodical which is distributed in a scattered way already issued: (one hundred thousand copies are spread out over the world in museums, galleries, bookshops, schools, movie theatres, shops, etc.) Made up by the French writer Alcanter de Brahm at the end of the XIXth century, the Point d'Ironie is a punctuation mark used at the end of sentences (as an exclamation or a question mark) to point ironic passages in a text."

The new issue is by Roman Signer.

Roman Signer was born in 1938 in Appenzell (Switzerland). He lives and works in St. Gallen. “Signer’s works have acquired the label ‘time-sculpture’. They share traditional sculpture’s concern with the crafting of physical materials in three dimensions, but they extend that concern into what may or may not be characterized as the fourth dimension: the dimension of time. Time-sculpture investigates the transformation of materials through time, focusing the viewer’s attention on the experience of the event, the changes wrought, and the forces involved. Variously combining three-dimensional objects, live action, still photography and moving-image documentation, Signer’s time-sculptures frame episodes of the containment and release of energy − always with ingenuity, often with captivating, epigrammatic swiftness and irresistible humour.” (Rachel Withers)

Roman Signer is famous for his “explosive” performances. His proposition for this issue of point d’ironie is part of this approach: “This idea has been going round in my head for a long time, until it finally clicked. Here, in this house, will it take place.”