Panamarenko PANAMARENKO (1940–2019)

Artforum Dec 18, 2019

Belgian artist and inventor Henri Van Herwegen, who went by the name Panamarenko, has died at the age of seventy-nine, after suddenly falling ill, The Brussels Times reports. While Panamarenko made his name as a painter, performance artist, poet, and sculptor, his fascination with science and technology led him to construct numerous aircrafts and other flying machines ranging from quasi-functional to fantastical objects including a flying carpet and a backpack equipped with a propeller. “To understand Panamarenko’s work, you have to understand that liftoff is only one of many possible measures of success,” wrote Martha Schwendener in a December 2001 Artforum review.

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