Roman Signer: Fontana di Piaggio (1995)

In Fontana di Piaggio, Roman Signer repurposes a blue Fiat Ape as a mobile fountain. He takes this compact, practical and cheap means of transport that has successfully negotiated the narrow alleyways of Italian towns since the 1940s, and converts it so that pressurised water shoots out of a nozzle behind the cab and sprays against the inside roof of the vehicle. The water then falls as droplets into a metal tank, from where it flows gently in an arc through a pipe until it leaks out into the drains. The interior of the cargo area becomes a kind of resonant body. Roman Signer explains: 'The entire space starts to ring and drone.'
Since it was created, Fontana di Piaggio has travelled through various European cities, starting out from Signer's current home of St. Gallen and journeying on via Langenhagen to Münster and Venice. During the 1997 'Sculpture Projects' exhibition in Münster in 1997, the Piaggio was parked at 14 locations in the city centre. One particularly significant exhibition station was the courtyard of the Swiss Pavilion, when Roman Signer supplied the Swiss contribution to the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999.
Fountains have traditionally been
meeting places in village or urban communities. The temporary installation of Roman Signer's mobile fountain on Heimplatz creates a similar venue for encounters at one of the principal squares in Zurich city centre.

Roman Signer: Fontana di Piaggio (1995). Part of the exhibition “Roman Signer: Landscape” at Kunsthaus Zürich. Zürich (Switzerland), April 3, 2025.