Stanley Brouwn (1935)
Netherlands
Biography :
"Born in 1935 in Paramaribo (Suriname) and died in 2017 in Amsterdam (Netherlands).
Stanley Brouwn is a historic figure in conceptual art. His approach has discreetly generated a way of being in the world, of connecting his own body to the universe. Since the beginning of the 1960s, Stanley Brouwn has maintained a position of withdrawal from the public scene, not attending the openings of his exhibitions and refusing any publication of a personal catalog, so that his work would not is perceived only in its concrete reality, without iconographic or textual mediation.
By this choice, Stanley Brouwn shows himself to be consistent with the nature of his works, which mean nothing other than what they show, namely a radical experience of the relationship of the body to space.
This can be translated by the equation: “walking (and living) = producing (art)”.
In 1957, arriving in Amsterdam, Stanley Brouwn collected itineraries drawn by passers-by who he asked for directions before stamping them This way Brouwn (1960). He then began to record the length of his steps in an almost administrative manner, using the conceptual codes of the time. Thus, Trois Pas = 2587 mm (1973) is a work comprising three metal compartments, which contain cards bearing the words “1 mm”. The number of cards contained in each locker reflects the length of three steps of the artist, i.e. 864 mm, 860 mm and 863 mm, for a total of 2587 mm. Here, unlike the way artists such as Richard Long or Hamish Fulton practice walking, the steps are not linked to any context: only their measurement matters. Then Stanley Brouwn makes records of his movements, recorded in books where only numbers or units of measurement appear. He is interested in the distances separating him from several individuals and the variations of these distances according to their movements and their speeds. Since the beginning of the 1990s, Stanley Brouwn has used materials such as aluminum sheet or strip, wooden or metal volumes with the same aim: to reflect the link between man and a spatial order, sometimes specific, sometimes generic.
He also proposed short journeys to different cities around the world, with instructions such as: walk 4 m towards Havana from this location – a work entitled 7896584.7166 m and presented in 2005 at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven ( The Netherlands).
At this moment stanley brouwn is at the distance of x feet from this point (2001) entered the IAC Collection in 2011."
(Source, website, Contemporary Art Institute of Villeurbanne)