Panamarenko
(c)photo: R. Van Den Bremt, Courtesy Anny De Decker, Antwerp
In the second half of the 1960s, Panamarenko built a series of poetic objects, often inspired by memories of his youth. Because the emphasis in these works is on their formal qualities and not yet on function or technology, they are referred to as ‘silent objects’. In 1965 Panamarenko comes across, in an American scientific magazine, the picture of a mountain bike with a strikingly small front wheel. After a sojourn to Switzerland, the artist decides to imitate the bicycle as object. In Zwitserse fiets the fascination for technology comes to the fore.