A Brief Biography - and many reasons for the waywardness - of Stanley Brouwn

A Brief Biography—and many reasons for the waywardness—of Stanley BrouwnRW

#biography, #walkingart, #degrowth, #accelerationism

Stanley Brouwn was born in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, on June 25th 1935. At that time Suriname was a Dutch colony.

According to Stanley Brouwn, this information is not relevant to his work.

What might be relevant to Stanley Brouwn’s work is that Surinam is 1.476377,95 foot in length, 1.476377,95 foot in width, and 4.671.916,01 foot in circumference. 
Or, to be precise: 1.956.621,74 sb-foot in length, 1.956.621,74 sb-foot in width, and 6191304,35 sb-foot in circumference.

Stanley Brouwn measured. He measured his foot and called the length an sb-foot.

In 1957 Stanley Brouwn moved to Amsterdam.

My foot is 23 centimeters as well.

One sb-foot equals one rvw-foot.

Stanley Brouwn measured his steps, each one different; a reflection of a specific moment. In 1972 he published them in a book, called Construction. It consists of pages full of steps with slightly different distances; 850 mm, 844 mm, 847 mm, 842 mm, 840 mm, 851 mm etc.

My steps are 375 mm, 672 mm, 749 mm, 813 mm, 784 mm, 556 mm, 470 mm, 487 mm, 613 mm, 606 mm, 422 mm.

According to my measurements, Stanley Brouwn took very big and equal steps.

Stanley Brouwn counted. He counted his steps.

Stanley Brouwn counted his steps and printed a card in 1972 reading: ‘18,947 steps, the number of steps counted in one day’.

Stanley Brouwn measured a step, a space, a door, an opening, a roof, and transferred the measurements into wood and steel. He then put the sculpted distances in another space.

At the end of the fifties Stanley Brouwn hung plastic bags with rubbish from a ceiling.

Stanley Brouwn does not want to be put in an art historic box.

According to Rebecca Solnit in Wanderlust, Stanley Brouwn is the first to turn walking into performance art.

Stanley Brouwn layed down papers on the street. Whoever walked or cycled over the paper, left traces, steps, lines, stains, etc, and created the piece of art. We see the unfolded action, at a specific place, at a specific time.

Stanley Brouwn refers to his work in his exhibitions.

This Way Mister Brouwn is a series of hand drawn instructions of how to get from point A to point B. Mister Brouwn would ask a random passerby to draw and tell him how to get somewhere.

Mister Brouwn didn’t want his picture to be taken.

The visual representations of the walks, the hand drawn directions, embed different temporalities; the actual time of the passerby explaining the direction, and the passerby and Mister Brouwn imagining the way and walking it in their minds. In the drawing I see the complete walk all at once. I don’t need the road to unfold in time, I don’t need to walk from a to b, the drawing shows compressed time. I see the potential walk in the future, while the drawing refers to an encounter in the past. By imagining the walk I bring it to the present.

Mister Brouwn does not associate his work with a political agenda.

To walk a walk takes time, to imagine a walk takes less time, to see a walk takes the least time. And all this time, the drawn walk may have, or may not have, been physically walked.

There are 2 pictures of Mister Brouwn.

Mister Brouwn walked in the forest of the Kroller-Müller museum. He put a sign up on every spot where he started a walk.

‘In many ways, walking culture was a reaction against the speed and alienation of the industrial revolution.’ says Rebecca Solnit in Wanderlust.

I can start a walk from where Mister Brouwn started a walk. We are connected by space over time.

On November 25th, 1975 Suriname gained independence.

Mister Brouwn said that if you walk in a certain direction there are an infinite number of people walking in the same direction. They are connected by time over space.

Mister Brouwn burnt his old work.

Union raced to send people up into space first. All eyes were directed up towards the sky. Mister Brouwn looked down to his feet and the streets they walked.

Mister Brouwn demolished all evidence, didn’t reproduce his work, didn’t digitalize, only refers to his work in his exhibitions, and lived in his time. He passed away and now he lives in the past.

Mister Brouwn won a David Röell Prize in 1980.

I don’t think he wants me to be able to find him and his work on my computer in his future. Still I found two pictures of him, a few quotes, pictures of his work, and some analysis of the art historic box in which he fits, on the internet. Should I share these? Or respect his wishes?

He managed to plant his feet in the earth, slow down, and walk whilst the western world was accelerating by tram, train, car, plane, zeppelin, and spacecraft.

Mister Brouwn was a professor at the Kunstacademie in Hamburg, and De Ateliers in Haarlem and Amsterdam. The internet has a forever in it, a promise of infinite accessible time. Not bound to space and time, a continuum floating in the air compressed in our devices. You can be anywhere at any time.

Mister Brouwn didn’t digitalize, he used his and your imagination to connect time and spaces.

‘Language is like a road; it cannot be perceived all at once because it unfolds in time, whether heard or read. This narrative or temporal element has made writing and walking resemble each other in ways art and walking do not.’ (Solnit)

Mister Brouwn won a Sandberg Prize in 1987.

Rebecca Solnit is right, but Mister Brouwn has conceptualized the walk and makes you experience a temporal dimension while standing still: A different experience than the actual time and physicality of the walk he took, but still ‘a work of art’ which unfolds in time.

Mister Brouwn doesn’t connect his identity and private life to his work.

The walks of Mister Brouwn will have consisted of infinitive elements, encounters, weathers, views, sounds, smells, etc. We don’t get to know those, he doesn’t share them. We get only the facts, the numbers, and we imagine his walk. Each of us imagines differently; his one walk turned into many walks in our minds.

Mister Brouwn was part of the Documenta Kassel in 1972, 1977, 1982, and 2002.

His work existed in a specific place and time. He didn’t want to and it is impossible to reproduce. It seems his thinking would also suggest that his work is specific to his place and time in the world, his history, his conditions, his personal life and identity.

Mister Brouwn won an Oeuvre Prize in 2000. 
 Mister Brouwn does not present arguments, opinions or statements, this makes him look objective; presenting facts, measurements, and numbers only. But what Mister Brouwn used to measure all these facts is his body. What can be more subjective and personal than building your whole work on the size of your body? In a way we all do of course, our body is how we relate to the world around us, we all have a relationship to these standardized sizes, which are so normal now. But Mister Brouwn didn’t comply. He confronted people indirectly, time and time again, with the loss of the personal and the local in an accelerating and globalizing society.

Mister Brouwn died on May 18th, 2017 in Amsterdam. 1 sb-year is 29.914 days. I am 9102 days old which makes me 0,3 sb-year. How long is an rvw-year? I will never know.

According to Mister Brouwn ‘it is even very probable that I shall be able to summarize all the projects I shall ever carry out in my life under one title, which would be We Walk on The Planet Earth’.

He never did, now I do: Stanley Brouwn walked on Planet Earth.

Wanderlust, a History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit, 2001. https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_sur001195501_01/_sur001195501_01_0011.php http://plaza.ufl.edu/kgladdys/ART6933/articles/brown1.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Age https://www.metropolism.com/nl/reviews/34127_stanley_brouwn_mens_loopt_op_planeet_aarde https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/artists/13151 https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Brouwn https://www.dewitteraaf.be/artikel/detail/nl/2929 https://prabook.com/web/stanley.brouwn/3742564