Several museums in Antwerp are paying tribute to Panamarenko, the iconic Flemish artist, who would have turned 85 this year. A further exhibition opens in Knokke soon. Find playful drawings at the KMSKA fine arts museum and at contemporary art museum M HKA his flying saucer is ready to go.
Antwerp artist Panamarenko, the artist name of Henri Van Herwegen, died in 2019. He would have turned 85 this year. Several venues are hosting exhibitions featuring his playful and witty works. Moreover, VRT Canvas TV is airing the documentary ‘A Night in the Museum’, in which Flemish actor, singer and TV host Wim Opbrouck unrolls his sleeping bag near Panamarenko's flying saucer at the M HKA on 11 February.
‘Journey to the Stars’ is the name of the exhibition at Antwerp’s contemporary art museum, the M HKA. It’s also the umbrella name that Panamarenko gave to his research into space travel. That interest runs like a golden thread through his entire career, from the 1960s onwards, clarifies curator Piet Van Hecke. In Italian, this life's work sounds even more poetic: ‘Viaggio alle stelle’.
Panamarenko experimented with magnetic fields in a bid to keep missiles on course. You can see some of these fearsome-looking devices at the M HKA. ‘We can't plug them in today, unfortunately,’ laughs Piet Van Hecke, ’but they worked at the time.’
Panamarenko found his inspiration in books on physics, but also in comics and films. ‘As an artist, he appropriated science as a kind of ready-made source of inspiration. As a result of his artistic approach, he could do things that a scientist cannot or should not. And therein lies the poetry: we look at it and we almost see it take off.’
What are we looking at? At a huge pale-yellow flying saucer. A sphere with a skirt that the artist called ‘the great sombrero’. The ‘Bing of the Ferro Lusto’ (1997, pictured at the top of this article), one of Panamarenko's masterpieces, is now reassembled. In Panamarenko's wonderful world, it is actually a flying saucer (the ‘Bing’) that can be launched from an 800-metre-long mother ship (the ‘Ferro Lusto’), a model of which is also on display.
A few hundred metres away, at the KMSKA, Panamarenko's floating magic carpet welcomes you to the monumental De Keyser hall. For decades his ‘Magic Carpet’ remained in a box, until contemporary art museum S.M.A.K. in Ghent unrolled it again last year.
The KMSKA mainly features drawings by Panamarenko. ‘He produced some 400 works on paper and we are showing around 70 of them, in addition to some smaller well-known objects,’ explains curator Lisa Van Gerven, including his famous magnetic shoes.
‘Flipke the Fruit Fly’
The drawings (with fun titles like ‘Flipke the Fruit Fly’) are full of wings, screws, snippets of text, arithmetic and the occasional little guy with Panamarenko’s features. They are witty little collages with paper, tape, silverpoint and Tipp-ex. You notice recurring themes: flying rucksacks, submarines, UFOs.
‘The drawings are works of art in their own right. It is best to think of them as visual thought experiments. He wanders off in his idea world. Sometimes you see a direct link to an object, but sometimes not,’ Lisa Van Gerven clarifies.
‘Works that give an insight into Panamarenko's creative mind we are now bringing together. He was really someone who did his own thing, who stubbornly thought outside the box and followed his own creativity. I find that very inspiring,’ says Lisa Van Gerven. ‘I hope visitors will see that too and ask themselves: what can I come up with? If I let go of everything, what is possible?’
There's a flying carpet at the KMSKA, a flying saucer at the M HKA and, at a third Antwerp location, at the Port House or Havenhuis, a small plane by Panamarenko has landed: the V1-Barada Jet!
In two months’ time Panamarenko will also arrive at the jet-set seaside resort of Knokke that is staging an exhibition on the artist and his fascination with animals.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
'Panamarenko. Journey to the Stars ': (free) until 7 September 2025 at M HKA in Antwerp.
'Panamarenko. Infinite Imagination ' until 4 May 2025 at the KMSKA in Antwerp.
‘V1-Barada Jet ’ at the Port House in Antwerp until 2 May 2025
‘Panamarenko's ZOO aan ZEE ’ (ZOO on SEA) at Cultural Centre Scharpoord in Knokke, from 22 March to 24 August 2025.
More information in Dutch on the Panamarenko year is available by logging onto www.panamarenko85.be .
‘A Night in the Museum', the documentary with Wim Opbrouck and a host of other guests will be available on the video on demand website after its airing on VRT Canvas on 11 February.