Hanne Darboven is recognised for her ambitious body of idiosyncratic work that operates at the limits of representation. Her works often form monumental installations that knit together mathematical procedure, historical and cultural artefact, and autobiographical documentation in an attempt to record subjective and objective perceptions of time via a conceptually coherent visual system. Darboven's unwavering dedication to the representation of time began in earnest in the late 1960s after a stint in New York where she met conceptual artists Joseph Kosuth, Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt. Upon returning to her native Hamburg, she developed a formula for date calculations that would go on to structure her ensuing time-based works. Darboven's early mathematical calendars were arranged in gargantuan wall installations that sought to quantify time in space. She explained her mathematical interpretation of time as a stance against social or political co-optation: unlike words, numbers refer to nothing beyond themselves, and it was this sovereignty that was so appealing to the artist. She described her methodology as "writing without describing" and transcribing the passage of time became a meditative process that she applied herself to with the regularity of office labour. Towards the end of the 1970s, Darboven began to punctuate her numerical tableaux with a variety of materials that grappled with themes such as the Enlightenment, mass media, technological progress, religion, politics, and the arts. Her use of photographs, postcards, objects from her studio, and quotations of texts ranging from Classical philosophy to the Frankfurt School, marked a shift in her practice from the abstract documentation of time toward a narrative interweaving of cultural and personal history.
Read MoreHanne Darboven (1941—2009). Selected solo exhibitions include Kunsthalle Bern (1969), Westfälischer Kunstverein, Muenster (1971), Kunstmuseum Basel (1974), Deichtorhallen Hamburg (1991), Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (both 1986), Dia Center for the Arts, New York (1996), Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (1997), Hamburger Kunsthalle (1999 and 2006), and Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2006), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2014), Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn and Haus der Kunst, Munich (both 2015), Deichtorhallen, Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg and Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (both 2017). Selected group shows include documenta, Kassel (1972, 1977, 1982, 2002), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1970, 1981, 1989, 2000, 2006), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1971, 1983), Museum of Modern Art, New York (1976, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2014, 2017, 2018), National Museum of Art, Osaka (1989), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1991), The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (1994), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1996), Haus der Kunst, Munich (1997, 2003, 2008), Museum für Moderne Kunst MMK, Frankfurt on the Main (2000, 2010), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2002), Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (2013, 2016), Kunstmuseum Basel (2014), ICA Miami (2017), Westbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2019) and Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2020). She represented the Federal Republic of Germany at the 1982 Venice Biennale (along with Gotthard Graubner and Wolfgang Laib).
Text courtesy Sprüth Magers.