2004

öffentlich zugänglich

Klopstockstraße 10, 80804 München

Teil des Kunstprojekts Petuelpark. Gummierter Bronzeguss, Wasser, Luft

Photos: Wolfgang Stehle

Text: Florian Matzner

A strange scenario: on a small island, a gardener or perhaps a fisherman has forgotten his rubber boots. At irregular intervals, a fountain of water shoots out of them, up to seven meters in the air, then dissolves again into nothing. Viewers can’t believe their eyes: a brief, violent explosion is followed by a period of silence, a deceptive idyll, until once again another surge of water attracts the attention of passersby. Within sight, another pair of abandoned boots stands next to a sidewalk. But no water gushes out of them; instead, they emit cold air, promising to cool off pedestrians in the summer.

With Water Boots – Air Boots, the Swiss artist Roman Signer—an old master of the four elements fire, water, earth, and air—has created a work of art that seems invisible at first glance. But even a second glance shows that it is brought to life for only brief moments. Idyl and explosion, stillness and chaos are side by side, an ironic reference to the overlapping and doubling of user interfaces in big cities experiencing vertical growth: tumultuous traffic below, the inviting Petuelpark above; speed below, quiet stillness above.

“When I go to a new city, I usually look for the water,” Roman Signer once said. “Water is like one of the threads that has accompanied me throughout my whole life.” With these two pairs of boots, the Swiss artist has also made a subtle contribution to the topic of public art, expanding upon the traditional manifestations of city fountains as symbols of wealth and excess with his humorous variation. Moreover, the flâneur in Petuelpark unexpectedly becomes an eyewitness to a situation that is as banal as it is grotesque, one that blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy, between sense and nonsense, between everyday life and the daydream.