Art and science achieve an unusually happy marriage in the work of Belgian
artist Panamarenko, on show at London’s Hayward Gallery.
Panamarenko’s life-size flying machines, dirigibles, submarines,
electromagnets, cars and spaceships are a delight to look at, imposing their
fantastic presence on the gallery as few works of art are able to do. But they
are also constructed according to the artist’s idiosyncratic interpretations of
the laws of engineering and science. So for all their poetic appearance, they
are real machines and are intended to work.
Not that they always do so successfully. Of the test flight of an
exceptionally noisy “rucksack-type personalised flying machine”, Panamarenko
observes: “In a way it was lucky that the thing was producing all that noise,
because noise produces fear. All the people who were with me in the laboratory
got scared and ran away. Pretty soon, because of the pressure of the huge
centrifugal forces on the propeller, the entire thing exploded.”
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Visionary and playful by turns, this exhibition will delight the Heath
Robinson in us all. Until 2 April, Hayward Gallery, South Bank, London.
