Roman Signer, A STEP TOWARDS THE SEA, 2016

Published for the Roman Signer exhibition. Films and Installations at the MAN in Nuoro (April – July 2016), A Step Towards the Sea is not just an exhibition catalog but is in effect an autonomous book that tells the relationship between one of the most celebrated contemporary artists and Italy. Signer’s relationship with the beautiful country has something special, just think of some of his most famous works shot on the Stromboli volcano, or of various actions and sculptures that have as object an Italian icon like the Ape Piaggio. The central section of the book is dedicated to Sardinia, with a conversation between Lorenzo Giusti and the artist and a photo essay by Barbara Signer. A text by Barbara Casavecchia frames Signer’s Italian dimension, introducing to the vision of Reisen Italien, the new content on the enclosed DVD, a personal collection of notes in film made by the artist during his travels with the family in the nineties. The essay by Rachel Withers introduces the full-bodied iconographic apparatus of the entire production in Super 8, 205 films made between 1975 and 1989 and presented in a large installation in the Nuoro exhibition. The book is completed by a DVD which, in addition to the unreleased film, includes all the actions taken by Signer in Italy since the beginning of the nineties (Stromboli, Civitella d’Agliano, the Maremma, Venice) and the work created for the Nuoro exhibition which gives the book its title.