Panamarenko

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Panamarenko in front of his aero model , 1969–1971, September 2005

Panamarenko (born February 5, 1940 in Antwerp - † December 14, 2019 ; actually Henri Van Herwegen ) was a Belgian artist , engineer and poet . As a physicist , inventor and visionary at the same time, Panamarenko held a position in contemporary art that was difficult to classify. His “poetic constructions”, mostly of aircraft , were installations of often monumental proportions and both artistic and technical experiments.

It was the artist's stated intention to produce fully functional machines, but none of his planes have so far taken to the air.

life and work

Panamarenko attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, which he left in 1962.

His use of a pseudonym - his only name in public life - goes back to this time (it was formed from the names of the state of Panama , the airline Pan Am and the Soviet politician and diplomat Ponomarenko ). He initially worked as a performance artist and organized happenings on the streets of Antwerp. Through these early activities, he quickly gained a local reputation as an artist and made acquaintance with more established older artists such as Joseph Beuys and Marcel Broodthaers .

In 1968, at the invitation of Joseph Beuys, Panamarenko presented his airplane at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . In the following year his works were shown in numerous galleries in Germany and the USA. In 1972 Harald Szeemann invited him to documenta 5 in Kassel with the aeromodeller (in the department Individual Mythologies : Processes ) and thus finally made him known to an international audience. His works were presented in a series of exhibitions in Lucerne, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart in 1972 and 1973 and exhibited in the National Gallery in Berlin in 1978 . In 1977 he was again a participant in a documenta , documenta 6 . In 1981 the aeromodeller was shown at the Center Pompidou in Paris. A first retrospective in Munich in 1982 was followed by a second in 1998 at the Cartier Foundation in Paris. In 1992 he exhibited at the documenta IX in Kassel.

In 2005 another retrospective of his work was shown in Brussels . In October 2005, on the occasion of his 65th birthday, the artist said goodbye to art.

Namesake

On January 5, 2015, the asteroid (12702) Panamarenko was named after him. The asteroid was discovered on September 22, 1990 by the Belgian astronomer Eric Walter Elst .

Selected Works

  • 1967: the plane
  • 1968: General Spinaxis
  • 1969–1971: The Aeromodeller
  • 1977: Umbilly II
  • 1995: Bernoulli
  • 1997: Bing of the Ferro Lusto
  • 1996: Panama , Spitsbergen , Nova Zemblaya
  • 1990–1991: The Archeopteryx robot chickens

Web links

Commons : Panamarenko  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Panamarenko stuff onverwacht (79) . Article of December 15, 2019 in De Morgen newspaper (Flemish)
  2. ↑ Panamarenko (English), Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerp , accessed on December 16, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Panamarenko
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Van Herwegen, Henri (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian artist
DATE OF BIRTH 5th February 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Antwerp
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 2019