Panamarenko
(c)image: Hans Theys
Botten met sneeuw [Boots with Snow] , 1966
'When it had snowed, and then started to thaw, you might see a pair of boots standing outside with a little layer of snow still on top, while the rest had already melted...' - Panamarenko
For his first exhibition at the Wide White Space Gallery, Panamarenko announced that he would be showing a large snow-covered tree. The image of frozen layers of snow on the branches was a childhood memory the artist
wanted to reconstruct using polyurethane foam. It proved impossible to bring a whole tree into the gallery, so Panamarenko limited himself to a snow scene with boots, branches and a leather satchel.
‘All of my early objects came from childhood memories. When I was little, you often saw things like this in front of people’s houses or in the backyard when it snowed. The boots with snow on them were real. And it looked the same on branches or a bag left outside.’
These ‘snow objects’ prompted the idea in 1968 of completely covering the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels
with plastic foam. Fear that public order would somehow be compromised meant, however, that the artist could not get permission for his snow plans, and so the invitation is all that remains of the action. The monument Kafka’s
Century (1983 and 2002) was later created in the same spirit as the snow-covered tree and Palais.
