stanley brouwn
1935
born in Paramaribo, Suriname
died 2017
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Berlin
2018
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Berlin
2016
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
2014
Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia
haubrok projects/ Fahrbereitschaft, Berlin
2012
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Berlin
Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerpen
Sammlung Haubrock, Berlin
IAC, Institut d'art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhone-Alpes, Villeurbanne
2011
Galerie Tschudi, Zuos
2010
Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp
2008
Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp
2006
Galerie Tschudi, Glarus
stanley brouwn - Bücher und Ephemera, Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen
2005
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Macba, Barcelona
Cenro andaluz de arte contemporáneo, Sevilla
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
2003
Casino Luxembourg
2002
Documenta, Kassel
books, Christine Burgin, New York
2001
Musée d'art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg
Casino Luxembourg
Stedelijk Museum voor actuele Kunst S.M.A.K., Gent
1998
Frac, Bretagne
1997
Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg
Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Brussels
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Museum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg
Palazzo Grassi, Venice
1996
Kunsthalle Krems, Wenen
1995
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Villa Arson, Nizza
Museum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg
1994
Le Channel, Calais
Witte de With, Rotterdam
Arc, Paris
Sous sol, Genéve
1992
Chateau d'Oirion, Oirion
1991
Museum Dhondt Dhaenens, Deurle
Kunsthalle Bielefeld
1990
Kunsthalle Hamburg
Deichtorhallen, Hamburg
Musée d'art Moderne Andre Malraux, Le Havre
Musée d'art Contemporain, Montréal
Biennale Sydney
Fundacion de Pensiones, Madrid
1989
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
Arc, Paris
Bilderstreit, Cologne
Clocktower Gallery, New York
Museum Pompidou, Paris
1988
Akademie der Künste, Berlin
1984
Castello Rivoli, Turin
1982
Documenta, Kassel
Biennale Venedig, Venice
1981
Westkunst, Cologne
1980
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Museum voor Moderne Hedendaagse Kunst, Gent
1978
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
The Contemporary Arts Centre Cincinnati, Ohio
The Forth Worth Art Museum, Texas
The San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art, San Fransisco
The Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
1977
The Art Institute of Chicago
White Chapel Gallery, London
1976
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
Kunsthalle Bern, Bern
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
1973
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
1972
Documenta, Kassel
1971
Zentrum für aktuelle Kunst, Aachen
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Sonsbeek, Arnhem
1970
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
Städtisches Museum, Mönchengladbach
Fernsehgalerie Gerry Schum, Düsseldorf
Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam
Michel Claura, 18 Paris 4 IV
1969
Schloß Morsbroich, Leverkusen
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
1968
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021
Sonsbeek 20 - 24 Force Times Distance, Arnhem
Stanley Brouwn, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
2020
Lines, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
Untitled, 2020. Three Perspectives on the Art of the Present, Palazzo Grassi, Venizia
From Nan Goldin to Roni Horn: Intimacy in the Collection Lambert, Avignon
2018
Gegen die Strömung - Reise ins Ungewisse, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen
Towards Infinity: 1965 - 1980, Simon Lee Gallery, New York
2017
Amsterdam Art Weekend, Eenwerk, Amsterdam
2016
Wolke und Kristall - Die Sammlung Dorothee und Konrad Fischer, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
WITH A TOUCH OF PINK - WITH A BIT OF VIOLET - WITH A HINT OF GREEN -
Dorothee Fischer in memoriam, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
Archiv Block 1964-2014, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz (March 18 - June 5)
2015
Ich kenne kein Weekend. Aus René Blocks Archiv und Sammlung, Neuer Berliner
Kunstverein, Berlin
Invisible Lines, SAFN, Berlin
Walking Sculpture 1967 - 2015, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln
In/visible, IKOB, Eupen
Adam, Eve & the Devil, Marres, House for Contemporary Culture, Maastricht
Serial Attitudes: Repetition as an Artistic Method Since the 1960s, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
2014
Impulse, Reason, Sense, Conflict: Abstract Art from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros
Collection, CIFO Art Space, Miami
Fahrbereitschaft - haubrok projects, Berlin
Propganda für die Wirklichkeit, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen
Some Artists' Artist, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
2013
La Fabrique des Possibles, FRAC - Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, Marseille
2012
Une histoire de la performance sur la Cote d'Azur de 1951-2011, Villa Arson, Nice
Sammlung Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
Espèces d'espaces, Christophe Daviet-Thery, Paris
2011
En Obras. Colecío Teixeira De Freitas, TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Les mille rêves de Stellavista_Commissaires associés Berdaguer et Péjus, Centre d'art contemporain la Synagogue de Delme
The Talent Show, University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa
Faster and Slower Lines - From the Collection of Pétur Arason and Ragna Róbertsdóttir, Listasafn Reykjavikur Reykjavik Art Museum, Reykjavik
Forms and Inflections, Silverman Gallery, San Francisco
I WAS A MALE YVONNE DE CARLO - El arte crítico puede ser sofisticado, incluso entretenido, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León
The Talent Show, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle
ATLAS. How to Carry the World on One's Back ?, ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe
Art, Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin
Sculpture In So Many Words: Text Pieces 1960-75, ZieherSmith, New York
2010
The Talent Show, MoMA PS1, New York City
Verortungen - Die Frage nach dem Raum in der zeitgenössischen Kunst, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century, MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York
Curated by Erik Verhagen and Jocelyn Wolff, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris
Je mehr ich zeichne - Zeichnung als Weltentwurf, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen
Taking Place, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
25 Jahre Galerie Tschudi, Galerie Tschudi, Zuoz
The Evryali Score, David Zwirner, Inc., New York
Group Show, Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp
Starter Works from the Vehbi Koç Foundation, ARTER - space for art, Istanbul
In-between Minimalisms - Play Van Abbe, Part 2: Time Machines, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
In-between Minimalisms & Free Sol Lewitt, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
The Talent Show, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
FIINE LINE, Georg Kargl Fine Arts & Georg Kargl Box, Vienna
It is it, Espacio 1414, Santurce
2009
time, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
Wo ist der Wind, wenn er nicht weht ? - Politische Bildergeschichten von Albrecht Dürer bis Art Spiegelman, Kunstverein Hamburg
VOIDS- eine Retrospektive über leere Ausstellungen, Kunsthalle Bern
In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art 1960-1976, MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York
Brancusi and Co, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
15 Jahre Sammlung Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg - Gegen den Strich, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
Konzeptuelle Kunst auf Papier, Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach
2008
Made in Munich, Haus der Kunst, Munich
Genau und Anders. Mathematik in der Kunst von Dürer bis Sol LeWitt, MUMOK, Vienna
Person of the Crowd, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase
2007
MACBA im Frankfurter Kunstverein, Kunstverein Frankfurt a.M.
Mapping the City, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Plug In #36, Van Abbermuseum, Eindhoven
2006
Eye on Europe, Museum of Modern Art, New York
MACBA COLLECTION, MACBA, Barcelona
Inventur. Sammlung Herbert, Kunsthaus Graz
Galerie mit Bleistift Fischer - Papierarbeiten aus den 60er und 70er Jahren, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
2005
Stanley Brouwn / Hans-Peter Feldmann, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
Big Bang - Destruction and creation in 20th century, art Centre Pompidou, Paris
Leporello, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
2004
Minimale Konzepte / Minimal Concepts, Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg
Minimal Artists and Conceptual Artists, Yvon Lambert, New York
70/90. Engagierte Kunst, Neues Museum, Nürnberg
Stedlijk Museum Amsterdam at Usce Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrad
Treasure Island, Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg
2003
Ready to Shoot - Fernsehgalerie Gerry Schum, Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf
Traces of Friday, ICA, Philadelphia
Kunstenaarsboeken et al, Neues Museum, Weserburg, Bremen
Projection, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf
2002
documenta 11, documenta, Kassel
2001
steirischer herbst 2001, steirischer herbst, Graz
Lost and Found - René Block, apexart, New York
1999
Word Volume, Galerie Schüppenhauer, Cologne
Oh cet écho !, Mamco - Musée d'art moderne et contemporain Genève, Genf
1982
documenta 7, documenta, Kassel
40. Biennale Venedig 1982, Venice
1977
documenta 6, documenta, Kassel
1972
documenta 5, documenta, Kassel
2005
Stedelijk Van Abbe Museum / Museu d'art Contemporani: A distance of 312 feet and an imagery distance of 587 feet intersect each other in such a way that the intersection divides each distance in two equal distances on monday 24 january 2005 at 13.18 in africa. Eindhoven / Barcelona
2004
Neues Museum Nürnberg: 70/90 - engagierte Kunst, Nürnberg
2001
Harry Ruhe: Stanley Brouwn. a chronology. 100 Exemplare, Amsterdam, Tuja Books
1993
Portikus, Frankfurt, Main / Witte de With, Rotterdam: 1 m x 1 m ... 10 feet x 10 feet / Stanley Brouwn. Frankfurt am Main
1992
Gevaert, Y.: Books, prints, objects by Stanley Brouwn. Eindhoven
1977
Whitechapel Art Gallery: Stanley Brouwn. London
Kunsthalle, Bern / Stedelijk Van Abbe Museum: Stanley Brouwn. Bern
1976
Stedelijk Van Abbe-Museum: Stanley Brouwn. Eindhoven
1974
Kunstverein Braunschweig: Concept Art. Braunschweig
1972
Zdenek, F.: Konzept-Kunst. Basel
1971
Dimitrijevi, B. & N.: In another moment. Beograd
Gegenverkehr e.V., Aachen: Stanley Brouwn : Afghanistan - Zambia. Aachen
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam: Stanley Brouwn : steps. Amsterdam
Addison Gallery of American Art: Formulation : [a special exhibition of work by ten European artists selected by Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf and Gian Enzo Sperone, Turin. Andover, Mass
1970
Lamelas, D.: David Lamelas : publication [texts by Keith Arnatt, Robert Barry, Stanley Brouwn]. London
1965
Köpcke, A.: Happenings (& actions). Düsseldorf
1964
Schmit, T. / Vostell. W.: Actions, Agit-Pop, De-collage, Happening, Events, Antiart, L' Autrisme, Art total, Refluxus: Festival der neuen Kunst. Mülheim
Vostell, W.: Happenings. Frankfurt am Main
ARTIST BOOKS
2001
On 2 march 2001 Stanley Brouwn will walk a total distance of x feet. Luxembourg
An imaginary column of 30 feet on Place Guillaume in Luxembourg. Luxembourg
The total distance of all my steps during 60 minutes mesured in feet = La distance totale de tous mes pas durant 60 minutes. Straßbourg
2000
A distance of ... / Stanley Brouwn. Part [3]: A distance of 2444601 feet. Amsterdam
A distance of ... / Stanley Brouwn. Part [2]: A distance of 2232 ells. Amsterdam
A distance of ... / Stanley Brouwn. Part [1]: A distance of 336 steps. Amsterdam
1999
1 x 1 royal cubit. Köln
1998
Stanley Brouwn. Editions Micheline Szwajcer & Michéle Didier. Antwerpen
1995
1 pied, 1/2 pied, 1/4 pied, 1/8 pied, 1/16 pied, 1/32 pied. Nizza
1978
Stanley Brouwn : 1000 mm 879 mm. Amsterdam
1977
100 this-way-Brouwn-problems for computer I.B.M. 360 model 95 / Stanley Brouwn. Köln / New York
1975
100.000 mm. Brussels
1971
One step 1X-100X. Brussels
This way Brouwn : 25-2-61 / Stanley Brouwn. Köln / New York
frieze, Issue 91, May 2005
Aaron Shuster
Stanley Brouwn
Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Normality is, more or less, a well-managed form of what is usually regarded as its opposite. Thus, sanity is a kind of gentrified madness; madness not simply being an accidental derangement of reason but an essential, original possibility of human existence never fully overcome. Likewise, so-called ‘normal’ sexuality is only a precarious organization of impulses that remain fundamentally perverse. And the same could also be said for walking. What is walking but, as the German psychiatrist Erwin Straus once put it, ‘a continuously arrested falling’, a propulsive act in which one constantly throws oneself off-balance while managing to catch oneself just in time – and a little further ahead – with the other foot?
On the humble subject of the walk there is a notable, albeit not terribly extensive, body of literature. One thinks of Balzac’s Théorie de la Démarche (Theory of Walking, 1833), with its acute physiognomy of the diverse forms of the gait; Robert Walser’s story ‘The Walk’ (1917); the aforementioned Straus’ phenomenological study of upright locomotion (The Upright Posture, 1949); Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts (1977) and Between the Woods and the Water (1986), in which he tells the tale of walking from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in the 1930s; Werner Herzog’s account of walking from Munich to Paris (Of Walking in Ice, 1978); and, not to be forgotten, the hilarious Monty Python sketch about the Ministry of Silly Walks. In the world of art there are quite a few artists for whom walking has been a major concern at some point, including Richard Long and Hamish Fulton, but there is one name that perhaps remains most indissolubly linked with this most basic of comportments: Stanley Brouwn. Indeed, one might argue that Brouwn’s stride merits a place alongside the stripes of Buren, Warhol’s soup cans and Flavin’s fluorescent light fixtures as one of the paradigmatic artistic gestures of the postwar era.
This remarkable retrospective of this peripatetic artist’s career afforded an opportunity not only to reconsider Brouwn’s often overlooked work, with its origins in 1960s Conceptualism, but also to reflect on the legacy of that tradition in an age that seems less concerned with that period’s major preoccupations. Among these could be cited: the dematerialization of the work; the impersonality of creative processes, or the disappearance of the author; and, like the experimental literary group Oulipo, an interest in contingent rules and the permutations of a simple pattern. All of these things also appear in contemporary work, but today the focus seems to be on the personal life and self-exhibition, a desire to be immersed in experience without mediation, and the flaunting of rules, systems and codes.
Brouwn’s habitual obsessions are with geography, distance and direction, scale, measure and dimension. He is a meticulous recorder, giving every indication of keeping his counter and measuring stick close at hand. Between 1960 and 1964 he produced the seminal series ‘This Way Brouwn’, asking passers-by to sketch for him on paper the way from A to B, then appropriating their drawing by adding his stamp ‘This Way Brouwn’. Whether the artist is dealing with his own meanderings, comparing different units of measurement –1 royal cubit: old egyptian measuring unit of length 2500 b.c. (1998) and division of 1m and 1 wari (kenya) according to the golden section (1994) – proposing short walks in the direction of world cities – walk 4m in the direction of havana distance: 7396584.7166m (2005), measured from the very spot where you standing in the museum – or detailing in exact terms what lies behind a square metre section of the museum wall – ‘a 28mm cushion of air separates brick from sand-lime brick’ (1x1m wall exhibition space van abbemuseum eindhoven, 1979-2005) – a cool passion for precision seems to reign.
As a creative strategy it seems oddly akin to that of a neurotic bureaucrat. The first room of the exhibition, with its rows of grey metal filing cabinets stuffed with index cards and its precise records of steps taken in various cities, appears to illustrate perfectly the ‘aesthetic of administration’ commonly associated with Conceptual art. Instead of a Ministry of Silly Walks, we have a kind of Silly Ministry of Walks – a phrase I mean not as flippant insult but as a way of trying to capture the very dry humour that pervades Brouwn’s idiosyncratic archives. And if we accept humour as the flipside of bureaucratic coldness, perhaps ecstasy constitutes the unlikely reverse of Conceptual detachment: there is in his work an invitation to lose oneself in the peculiar ecstasy of measurement, in the same way that the man Brouwn evaporates into the many leagues he has trekked. To paraphrase the artist: ‘I am become a distance….’ And to amble through the Brouwn exhibition is in a sense already to participate in this work, since each room is designated ‘Portrait of a Place, the surface of the floor on which you stand at this moment’, with the relevant dimensions, of course, carefully noted.
I found it particularly fitting that a few floors above the Brouwn exhibition, the alternating male and female voices of On Kawara’s One Million Years (Past & Future) (1970– ongoing), were solemnly counting down a seemingly endless succession of years. In a happy coincidence, between Brouwn and Kawara we are confronted with those two fundaments of the universe: space and time. On this occasion what struck me most was the parallel attempts of the two artists to render these pure conceptions of experience, as philosophers would say,as concrete, handy objects; namely, books. What to make of these supremely anti-literary monuments 10 Kilometres (1975) or ‘One Million Years’ (in its incarnation as a series of books)? No doubt the answer of a friend of mine when asked ‘What is your favourite book?’ would have pleased Brouwn. She replied: ‘The atlas.’
Aaron Shuster

stanley brouwn
28. Apr 2023 - 29. Jul 2023
BERLIN

stanley brouwn
22. Jan 2021 - 30. Apr 2021
DÜSSELDORF

stanley brouwn
27. Apr 2018 - 28. Jul 2018
BERLIN
WITH A TOUCH OF PINK - WITH A BIT OF VIOLET - WITH A HINT OF GREEN - DOROTHEE FISCHER - IN MEMORIAM
03. Jun 2016 - 23. Jul 2016
DÜSSELDORF
