Paul Panhuysen

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, sound sculptures, and concerts about free improvisation, experimental music, and electronic music.

Panhuysen was born in Borgharen. He first followed Monumental and Autonomous Art Studies at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (1954–1959), and then followed Sociology of Art Studies at the University of Utrecht (1957–1961). Defined as artist, musician, curator, art sociologist and art theoretician, his artistic interests were first inclined towards Abstract Expressionism (until 1964), Minimal art (until 1966) and then Performance art (until nowadays).

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).

Paul Panhuysen, has made "The Pythagorean Prom" in Lublin.

Social engagement and experimental art were developed under several ways. Panhuysen founded the Band of the Blue Hand (nl) (De Bende van de Blauwe Hand) (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.

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:

• Paul Panhuysen and the Galvanos: Lost for Words, in which various recordings are input into several galvanometers, attached to which are metal springs which vibrate more readily at some frequencies over others, and these frequencies are then reamplified.
• Paul Panhuysen: Partitas for Long Strings, which is from the long string installations which Panhuysen has been doing for quite a while.

He was also a member of the Maciunas Ensemble, named after George Maciunas of Fluxus fame, and has worked with Arnold Dreyblatt and Ellen Fullman. Panhuysen also collaborated with Remko Scha.

Panhuysen died on 29 January 2015 at the age of 80.