Imaginary encounters with Stanley Brouwn
Between 1960 and 1964 the Conceptual artist Stanley Brouwn wandered the streets of Amsterdam and asked people for directions, which they drew on cards he later stamped with the phrase “THIS WAY BROUWN.”
The following are responses to Brouwn’s query, written on reproductions of those cards and juxtaposed over some of the only known images of Brown, most in the midst of conducting his project.
They do have a somewhat chronological arc, and are presented to represent such.
All maps imply a future.
Here is only a place when you are
Here is only a place when you and I are
Here is only a place when other places are not
Here is only a place when it is
Here X
You are here.
If you leave the art work here,
and go to there, the artist
will still be here, but
there as well.
The artwork is sometimes
here
and, when I am not,
there.
If you go there, and
and I remain here, you
will be here and I
will be there.
We are only here
now.
How much of your presence
remains within
the cartography
of your question?
The path leads
to where
time stops [Here]
only now.
The way is
wholly lost.
When you go there
we will
cease to exist.
Here
is all,
now.
We are both
no longer here,
now.
I can see the elsewhere
all around me.
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