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Paul Panhuysen (21 August 1934 – 29 January 2015) was a Dutch composer, visual and sound artist. He founded and directed Het Apollohuis, an art space that functioned during the 80's and 90's having artists doing sound installations, , and concerts about free improvisation, experimental music, and electronic music.
Panhuysen’s production is greatly multifaceted though the goal remains contributing to improve the daily life of people. Marked by this social motivation, he organised several events such as the “Road Block” in Veendam (1970) to allow children to play safely at the street. In addition to this, he became Director of the Art School Vredeman de Vries, Leeuwarden (1962–1964) with a focus on raising the quality of education. The social recognition of his work was manifested with the prizes Mention of Honnor, Prix Europe de peinture, Oostende (1962) and Frisiana Award, Leeuwarden (1963), as well as with the job appointments at the Municipal Museum The Hague as member of educational staff (1966) and at the Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven in charge of the Educational and Public Relations Department (1966–1967).”My task at the Van Abbe was to do the PR and organize education. At the same time there was also developing in the Social Democratic party, in the group of the younger members. They had two names, one was for the political wing and one for the more cultural wing. The latter had a big kind of symposium, meeting, and they asked me to prepare what then I called “situatii” (situations). That is how I named them – which were events, happenings, installations. It was bringing all those new art forms together.” in ” Judit Bodor: Interview with Paul Panhuysen”, by Judit Bodor at Artpool, 2003.
Social engagement and experimental art were developed under several ways. Panhuysen founded the ( De Bende van de Blauwe Hand)“With the best of the students and with the best of the professors I had, we decided to make a kind of group of collaborating artists. And that was the Band of the Blue Hand. We organized exhibitions in Friesland and outside Friesland, elsewhere in the country and it became quite well known also because of its background. We had about ten people who were regular members. We worked very often in projects together, we used also the opportunities of having exhibitions to develop teaching and to develop new work and several things that changed by then. Because almost nobody had a studio any more we had no place to develop it. We had contact with a gallery which was named the Gallery of the Blue Hand. That is how the name came.” in ” Judit Bodor: Interview with Paul Panhuysen”, by Judit Bodor at Artpool, 2003. (from 1965), and organized the Museumfeest ( Museumparty, 1967) at the Van Abbemuseum with a record of 1,200 visitors. Then he set up the “Free Community of the Global City of Peace and Pleasure” (1967-8), and the “Maciunas Ensemble” (1968-), and from 1980 until 2001 he founded and directed the aforementioned Het Apollohuis, in Eindhoven.
He was a member of the Board of the Federation of Artists Associations (BBK), and founder of the artists unions: OBK and VBBKZN (1969–1981). As an artist-in-residence, he has stayed at the Exploratorium, San Francisco, USA (1993), at the Yellow Springs Institute, Chester Springs, USA (1994), and at the Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Aomori, Japan (2002). The artist has lately received the Noord-Brabant Cultural Award (1996), Award best exhibition, Galerie Klatovy/Klenová (2000) and Honorary Mention, Prix Ars Electronica, Linz (2004). Paul Panhuysen was invested Companion of the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 1998.Jacobs, P.M.J.E. Beeldend Nederland: biografisch handboek, Tilburg: P.M.J. Jacobs, 1993, p.208
The most known sound installations of this artist were made with strings, crossing the spaces in different ways, and later played by the artist putting rosing in his fingers and using them as a sort of violin bow.
He has released several albums, including:
Maciunas Ensemble, named after George Maciunas of Fluxus fame, was an ensemble founded in 1968 by Paul Panhuysen, Remko Scha and Jan van Riet. Scha left the ensemble in 1982. In 2012 a set of eleven CDs was released of the early years. He has also worked with Arnold Dreyblatt and Ellen Fullman.
Panhuysen died on 29 January 2015 at the age of 80.
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