ART-PRESENTATION: Panamarenko-Works On Paper

It is virtually impossible to categorize Panamarenko’s work in a particular style or movement in contemporary art. This is because of the unique and innovative nature of his oeuvre. Panamarenko was always exploring new avenues by means of drawings, writings and calculations. He showed things that were not fully visible and for this purpose relied on his imagination. His combination of artistic insight and technological experiment gives his spectacular constructions an odd sort of beauty, both playful and imposing.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: S.M.A.K. Archive

Panamarenko’s exhibition “Works On Paper” at S.M.A.K. was originally due to be staged to celebrate Panamarenko’s  80th birthday. However, due to his unexpected death on 14 December 2019, it has become a posthumous tribute. Ever since the S.M.A.K.  Museum was founded in 1975, Panamarenko (Henri Van Herwegen, 5/2/1940-14/12/2019) was a key figure for the museum. It is no coincidence that the new museum’s very first acquisition for its collection was the work “Deltavliegtuig P-1 Piewan” (1975). In 1980 the purchase of “The Aeromodeller” (1969-71) saw the artist’s magnum opus added to the collection. Along with numerous other sculptures and drawings, these works comprise an ensemble that can be seen as one of the cornerstones of the S.M.A.K. collection. This collection presentation brings together a selection of drawings and editions that offer deeper insight into the creative process behind Panamarenko’s art objects. First and foremost, the drawings were intended to be functional, and should be seen as visual representations of Panamarenko’s thought process during the creation of an object. He often augmented the figurative sketches with captions in which we see the artist making calculations, and listing parts and materials. And yet they cannot simply be used by everyone like a kind of handbook for reconstructing Panamarenko’s spatial works. Indeed, he himself said that “[… if you build them strictly according to the drawing, then they will look terrible”. Moreover, Panamarenko believed that drawings should also be original and powerful images. Thus despite the fact that they served as preparatory drawings, his drawings can also be seen as artworks in their own right.

Panamarenko was born in Antwerp into a family of boat repairers, and at the age of 15 went to study art at the Fine Arts Academy there. Panamarenko appears in the early 1960s, at first often as Panamarenko Multimillionair. The signature is something to do with the airline PanAm (the desire to leave the earth behind being one of his constant preoccupations), with Panama (the word painted on the “Aeromodeller”) and with the name of a Soviet politician, Panteleimon Ponomarenko, picked up from a radio broadcast. His first major work was a flying machine called “Das Flugzeug” (1967). He would be fascinated by flying machines, both fantastical and perfectly operational, for the rest of his career, whether as actual constructions, models or drawings. A year after “Das Flugzeug” he broke through internationally with an exhibition in the state art academy in Düsseldorf. In 1975, Panamarenko published a small blue artist book, in which he presented his research into the concepts of gravity, forward motion, insect flight, jet propulsion and rotor lift. In this early document, the seeds of virtually all the objects that eventually followed were sown: flying machines, automobiles ,spacecraft, ships, and lastly mechanical robots. Panamarenko’s venture into the construction of flying machines began with his first airship “The Aereomodeller” (1969-71). This dirigible airship was 27 meters long and consisted of a cigar-shaped balloon, propelled by two aircraft engines, and with a basket-like gondola attached to it. It was mobile home which was meant to travel around freely. Panamarenko wanted to fly from Belgium to a festival in the Netherlands to test the airworthiness of this fantastic construction but the Dutch aviation authorities sent a telegram to the artist, banning the flight. “The Aeromodeller” has since become the most iconic work in Panamarenko’s oeuvre. In the decades that followed the first version, the artist built numerous variations and prototypes of airships, each different in form, color and proportion. Towards the late 1960s, Panamarenko showed a growing interest in flying saucers and their means of propulsion. The following years saw not only the construction of a new spacecraft, but also research into the various possibilities of using existing magnetic fields as cosmic highways by which flying saucers might traverse the solar system. The artist’s fascination for the cosmos culminated in “Ferro Lusto”, a project that he described as “a spaceship of 800 meters in length and fit for a crew of 4000”. To Panamarenko the “Ferro Lusto” was the mothership that would carry various smaller crafts named “Bings”. Because Panamarenko was constantly thinking and re-thinking, trying and re-trying, calculating and re-calculating his con-cepts, he produced a large body of studies and drawings related to his different projects.  Then, in 2005, at the age of 65, Panamarenko announced that he had had enough and was going to retire.

Info: S.M.A.K., Jan Hoetplein 1, Gent, Duration: 8/2/20- , Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 9:30-17:30, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, https://smak.be