For centuries, maps have guided people through the world, yet those without one can always ask for directions. In his work This Way Brouwn, Stanley Brouwn engaged with this simple act: he asked random passers-by for directions and marked their spontaneous, chance drawings with his personal stamp. In doing so, the participants inadvertently became part of a work that explored the experience of time, movement, and space.

Brouwn described the project as imbuing these routes with “the most primal aspect of our being: the ability to move.” Walking and the experience of motion became central to his practice, and through this pioneering participatory approach, he invited viewers to become co-creators, experiencing the work from the perspective of the artist who orchestrated it. Even as he sought to remain anonymous, Brouwn’s presence and influence were felt throughout his oeuvre.

Curator Christophe Cherix: “What’s fascinating here is an artist making a work through his interaction with people. He’s basically delegating the making of his work, not to someone that he chose, but to anyone. And the artist basically gives you here only a starting point and stops right when the work begins.

What he did was to ask someone, “How can I get from here to another point of the city?” And he would hand them a sheet of paper, with a pen or a pencil. And, the passerby was asked to make the drawing. And what Stanley Brouwn did was to ask similar directions to different people. So on one side, you see someone who is telling him with very geometrical line how to cross the city, and someone has a much more smooth, fluid way of crossing the city.”

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Information sourced from the Rijksmuseum and MoMA websites.