Galerie Hubert Winter

Paul Etienne Lincoln
Panhard Special - The Velocity of Thought
19. October – 7. December 2007
They delight in the effect to come, when all the energy contained there
will brutally actualize, delivering a blast, a seism, a cyclone,
whose amplitude and form no one can yet predict.
Die letzten Zeilen. In: Maurice G.Dantec, Babylon Babies. Translated by Noura Wedell. New York, Semiotext(e), 2005.

Galerie Hubert Winter in Vienna will feature the seminal work by Paul Etienne Lincoln, the Panhard Special and his short film, The Velocity of Thought. After celebrating its 30th anniversary in Turin last year, the prototype car, Panhard Special, which is powered by a Levassor Tigre engine fuelled by nitrous oxide, natural gas and linseed oil, will be unveiled in Vienna for the first time.

The Panhard Special was planned in the midst of the first oil crisis in 1976 and was modified over the years until taking on its present form. Lincoln has produced a vehicle with the cleanest possible combustion engine. Each part of the vehicle was designed and realised manually without using pieces already available on the market.
The chassis of the Special was welded from a small diameter cold-rolled chrome-molybdenum tube that is both lightweight and extremely rigid. The structure resembles the construction of Zeppelins, 1930s dirigibles, and Buckminster Fuller's Geodesic structures of the 1950s. The front suspension has an unusual system of internally sprung nitrogen-charged dampers; the steering linkages were specially fabricated; the rear suspension uses an adaptation of the Panhard Levassor's original hollow axle; the trailing arm linkages and spring-damper units were specially constructed.

Like all other works by Paul Lincoln, the Panhard Special - The Velocity of Thought is a complex and sophisticated piece, probing the issues of atmospheric and respiratory systems, as well as man/machine relationship in a visionary and poetic way.
The exhibition will also showcase the technical drawings for the prototype, the specially constructed pressure suit for the driver and a short film, documenting the trip from Friuli to the test track on the Lingotto building, which is available in an edition of five.

Paul Etienne Lincoln (*1959 in London) has been living in New York since the mid 80s. His work is known of its complexity and meticulousness. He has been working on the relationship between nature and mechanics, producing work studded with evocations of the history of science and the arts, coupled with surrealistic flair.