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