stanley brouwn will be the first solo museum exhibition in the United States of this powerfully elusive and mysterious Conceptual artist. Among the most important figures associated with the emergence and foundations of Conceptual art in the 1960s, brouwn critically engaged institutionalized conventions of measuring space and distance. He employed and integrated standard, ancient, and self-styled units of measurement in works that draw increased awareness to how we perceive, occupy, and move through time and space. brouwn was determined to separate his work from his personal life. He disavowed biography as a mediating factor in the experience of an artwork and sought instead to cultivate a direct relationship between his work and the viewer. To that end, he forbade both photographic documentation of his artworks and exhibitions, as well as writing about them and about himself.

The curators and Art Institute are committed to ensuring that this exhibition represents the artist’s intentions as set out during his lifetime, which means there are no plans for a companion publication or for public programming. Rather, the work will speak for itself, serving as a visual testament to stanley brouwn and a material experience of his work for those who encounter it.