E-MAX by Panamarenko

May 28 – September 14, 2002

Panamarenko

The E-MAX has been exhibited in 2002 in the art space with a whole of 5 designs and 3 small, unique E-MAX sculptures (h: 90cm). The exhibition included an edition on paper of 40 pieces, which all has been worked on and have been coloured up by the artist.

“The E-MAX is a manpower backpack plane with clastic drive good for a flight of 4 seconds. Rewinded in 1 minute. The weight is 10 kg, the lifting power is 100 kg. The single propellerblade of 2,5 meters with contraweight is folding. It is the successor of the Katapult-MAX, who has a very good rubber-motor, but too small propellers.” – Panamarenko

E-MAX
Multi-colour print, heightened by the artist
59.4 x 42 cm
Signed bottom left and numbered bottom right in pencil
Edition: 40 + V A.P.
Exhibited copy: XXXXXX
Published by: De 11 Lijnen, Oudenburg
First shown at the ‘E-MAX’ exhibition from May 28th – September 14th, 2002, De 11 Lijnen, Oudenburg.”A novel experience is the nutriment of all that an individual does. As a rule we live with what is universal, we adapt it to all kinds of circumstances. We rarely have an eye for the unexceptional and new, even though it is there that experience is to be found…
Nutriment is necessary for making art, and so, too, is a life thet is much broader than any work of art. If we follow a contemporary artist, we are struck by the narrowness of his life. He changed wives X number of times, he had toothache and wrote a moving poem about it, he couldnot sleep and so he wrote a prayer for good sleep, he had… well?, he had so much and was so little. And the result?  – mediocre literature and art.
Not a single contemporary Flemish author has had an original erotic experience, i.e. one that didn’t derive from foreign literature. Either it is de Sade or J.K. Huysmans or someone of that sort; it is never that one specific poet. People will come to read manu ‘noble’, ‘magnanimous’, ‘sublime’ emotions, sometimes dowsed in the sauce of a musty conjugal bed or something of that kind. Never the profound experience of the almost unutterable uniqueness, vertiginous strangeness of a true experience… The rel, original experience is usually missing, because the writers are never real, original individuals…” (L.F.)

Biography

Panamarenko (1940, Antwerp – 2019, Brakel) is an exceptional and unclassifiable figure in contemporary art, who has been described as ‘one of the great creators of the end of the century’.
Artist, Engineer, Poet, Physicist, Inventor and Visionary, and has for thirty years pursued a singular course of exploration of space, movement, flight, energy and the force of gravity.
His work, fusing artistic and technological experiment, takes many forms: Aeroplanes, flying carpets, cars, flying saucers, submarines and birds. Spectacular structures of strange beauty, both playful and inspiring.
Panamarenko Collectief.

Selected solo shows: 2014, Panamarenko Universum, Muhka, Antwerp. 2010, Panamarenko, MODEM, Debrecen. 2009, Panamarenko, Frac Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque. 2005, Retrospectieve – Flying Saucers and Devil Rowlers Motorcycle Club, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels. 2003, Operatie Panamarenko, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; Multiples 1966-2003, Muhka, Antwerp and Atelier Augarten, Wien. 2002, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. 2000, Jean Tinguely Museum, Basel. 2000-2001, Orbit, Dia Foundation Center for the Arts, New York. 1998, La grande exposition des soucoupes volantes, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris. 1992-1993, The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo – The National Museum of Art, Osaka – Fukuyama Museum of Art, Fukuyama – The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama – The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura. 1991, Panamarenko. The Aeromodeller, Kunstverein Hanover. 1989, Panamarenko. Een overzicht 1965-1985, Muhka, Antwerp. 1984, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona. 1981, The Aeromodeller, Centre national d’art et de culture, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. 1978, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlijn; Rijksmuseum Kröller- Müller, Otterlo; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. 1977, Flugobjekte und Zeichnungen. Arnold Bocklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Vladimir Tatline. Flugmodelle, Plane und Fotos, Kunsthalle Basel. 1975, Atom and manpower, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln. 1973, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, ARC. 1972-1973, Automobile und Flugmaschinen, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Luzern – Städtische Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf – Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart.

Selected group exhibitions: 2016, Inspiratie, O.M. Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerpen; Magie und Macht – Von fliegenden Teppichen und Drohnen, MARTa, Herford. 2015, ARStronomy, La Casa Encendida, Madrid. 2014, Passions Secrètes, Collections Privées Flamandes, Tripostal, Lille; De Vierkantigste Rechthoek, KAdE, Amersfoort; Constellations, Frac Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque; Spuren der Moderne, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg. 2013, Visionen- Atmosphären der Veränderung, MARTa, Herford; Wanderlust. A Never Ending Journey to the Other Side of the Hill (cur. Hans De Wolf & Yun Ik), Gwangju Museum of Art, South-Korea. 2012, S.F. [Art, Science & Fiction], MAC’s – Grand Hornu; ENSEMBLEMATIC, S.M.A.K., Ghent. 2010, Der Offene Garten, Kunsthalle Lingen Kunstverein, Germany; The Science of Imagination, Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Palace of Arts, Budapest; Ich weiß gar nicht, was Kunst ist – Einblicke in eine private Sammlung, MARTa, Herford. 2003, Wings of Art – Motiv Flugzeug, Kunsthalle Darmstadt; Defying Gravity – Contemporary Art and Flight, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC. 2002, Sydney Biennale 2002, Sydney. 2000, Useless Science, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Voici, Paleis voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels. 1999, Les Champs de la Sculpture, Champs Elysées, Paris; Scotch Gambit, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle. 1998, Landschaft. Die Spur des Sublimen, Kunsthalle zu Kiel; Kunstraum Innsbruck; Kunstmuseum Esbjerg, Denmark. 1997, La Biennale di Venezia 47, Venice. 1996, Ars Aevi 2000, Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato; Comme un oiseau, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris. 1995, Les Constructions du Ciel 1900-1958 & Panamarenko, Fondation pour l’Architecture, Brussels. 1992, Documenta 9, Kassel. 1991, Irony by vision: René Magritte, Marcel Broodthaers, Panamarenko, Jan Fabre. Tokyo. 1990, Artisti (della Fiandra), Palazzo Sagredo, Biennale di Venezia, Venice. 1981, Dia Chelsea ’00-‘001, Dia Chelsea, New York. 1977, Documenta 6, Kassel; Europe in the Seventies: Aspects of Recent Art, The Art Institute of Chicago US. 1976, La Biennale di Venezia 1976 – International Events, Venice. 1975 Function of Drawing, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo. 1972, Documenta 5, Kassel. 1970, Information, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

©Photo credits: D. Malagamba