Stanley Brouwn

Stanley Brouwn was a Suriname-born Dutch conceptual artist known for his exploration of dematerialization. His work epitomized the conceptualism of the 1960s.

Biography of Stanley Brouwn

Stanley Brouwn was born in 1935 in Paramaribo. In 1957, Brouwn relocated to Amsterdam, where his friend and fellow artist Armando introduced him to the Zero movement. Brouwn later spent several years teaching as a professor at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg.

In the early 1960s, the artist created his first works, which included iron and wooden sculptures, as well as suspended polythene bags filled with garbage. Few of these early pieces have survived, as Brouwn destroyed most of them.

Brouwn's most renowned work, created in 1961, was titled "this way brouwn." This piece, which combined conceptual and performance art, involved Brouwn asking passers-by for directions, recording their responses on tape or encouraging them to draw their directions.

In the 1960s, conceptual art and the Zero movement were prevalent in the Netherlands. As a conceptual artist within this movement, Brouwn chose distance and size as his primary artistic mediums.

In the 1970s, Brouwn created works that investigated units of measurement. He developed these units based on the dimensions of his own body parts, including the "Stanley Brouwn foot," which was based on the length of his foot, approximately 26 cm.

The artist also investigated the concept of deformation. In 1974, he drew lines on three sheets of paper to create borders, with each line representing the length of a step. When the sheets were hung together, they allowed for the observation of movement in a single direction.

Brouwn's work gained prominence and secured him spots in numerous prestigious exhibitions. During his lifetime, his pieces were featured in Documentas 5, 6, 7, and 11, the 1982 Venice Biennale, and a 2005 retrospective at the Van Abbe Museum.

Another key aspect of Brouwn's conceptualism was his absence. He deliberately avoided attending exhibitions of his work and provided no bibliographical information to audiences. Brouwn also refrained from publishing photographs of his work, which is why so little is known about his life.