Lot 341
£7,560
Auction: 28 October 2022 from 10:00 BST
signed and inscribed 'enig A van A tot J. Panamarenko' (on a label affixed to the underside), printed paper laid down on wooden board, polyurethane G4, aluminium, metal, four flat coils and electric cable on a metal stand
Provenance:
Galerie Isy Brachot, Paris;
Gimpel Fils, London.
Exhibited:
Gimpel Fils, London, Panamarenko, July - August 1993 (illustrated in catalogue);
Gimpel Fils, London, Collectors Choice, 21 January - 4 March 2017.
Literature:
Theys, Hans, Panamarenko: A Book by Hans Theys, Brussels, 1992, no.102, p.107;
Panamarenko, Galerie Isy Brachot, Paris, 1989, p.21 (illustrated);
Henri van Herwegen, known by the name Panamarenko, became renowned as a painter, performance artist and sculptor whose fascination with science and technology led him to create aircraft and flying objects both semi-functional and fantastical. Martha Schwendener wrote ‘to understand Panamarenko’s work, you have to understand that lift off is only one of many possible measures of success.’ (Artforum review, December 2001)
Born to a family of boat mechanics in Antwerp in 1940, Panamarenko studied at the city’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts from 1955 to 1960. He soon became interested in aeroplanes and human-powered flight and this was reflected in the name he chose which is purportedly an acronym for ‘Pan American Airlines and Company’. Projects stemmed from his first major work Das Flugzeug in 1967, to a Zepplin named The Aeromodeller (1969-71) and Archiaeopterix III (1990), a mechanical chicken intended to look like a pre-historic flying dinosaur.
Champ Magnetique is part of a group of works that focuses on the kinetic force of a mechanical movement and magnetic forces, with the intention of animating the metallic disc, awaiting levitation, playing with ideas of spacecraft using electromagnetic energy. Panamarenko continued these ideas with a prototype for a seven metre in diameter flying saucer Bing of the Ferro Lusto X (1997). Designed to capture then recycle magnetic fluids, which in turn created sideways and upward movement, it offered the viewer the hypothetical knowledge of possible escape.