ART-PRESENTATION: Hanne Darboven
Hanne Darboven, the great conceptual artist, observed the political developments of her times with a watchful eye and created extensive works that can also be interpreted as comments on day-to-day events. Likewise, her fascinating and stylistically diverse oeuvre reflects the evolvement of our history, culture, and society. By interweaving texts, photographs, postcards, and cross sums, she merged the past and “today” in a collage. Its message is conveyed in an infinite number of implicit chronicles.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Sprüth Magers Gallery Archive
Three of Hanne Darboven’s monumental installations are on presentation at Sprüth Magers Gallery in Los Angeles. Her installations 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. She studied painting from 1962–66 at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. In 1966 Darboven moved to New York, where she established herself as a major Conceptual artist and was in contact with Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, and Joseph Kosuth, among others. During her initial stay in New York (1966–68), Darboven developed her “Konstruktionen”, which comprised a neutral language of numbers in linear constructions using pen, pencil, typewriter, and graph paper as materials. For this German conceptualist, numbers not only represented an artificial, universal language but also allowed her to mark the passage of time. Towards the end of the ‘70s, Darboven began to punctuate her numerical tableaux with a variety of materials that grappled with themes such as: 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. Throughout the ‘80s, during which Darboven oscillated between Hamburg and New York, the artist extended the principles and systems she established in the ‘70s. “Erdkunde I, II,III” ( (1986) consists of over 700 wall-hanging panels, each comprising 4 collaged sheets of calendar pages, articles, drawings and photographs, as well as 10 free-standing wooden classroom displays. The composition is divided into 3 parts that are structured by indices, the index panels of the first part of the installation present black and white photographs of Darboven’s Hamburg studio. Visible within the photographs are rolled and unrolled educational maps, an array of objects from her studio. “Upstairs, Leben, leben” (1997-98) is an immense installation of over 1400 framed works that form part of Darboven’s systematic indexing of the years 1900-99. It utilises the mathematical representation of history developed early in her practice, calculations are conveyed in type, ball-point and felt-tip pen. It also features photographs of dollhouses, and two dollhouses from Darboven’s personal collection are physically presented in the gallery space. “Fin de Siècle – Buch der Bilder” (1992-93) is assembled from over 500 work sheets, 42 panels and 54 albums. On the wall, the framed sheets combine date calculations with reproductions of her earlier work, “Bilddokumentation” (1978). These postcards display various objects from her studio. Each object is classified with written labels. The albums housed in the vitrines feature photographs of Darboven’s notebooks, date calculations, and excerpts from their transliteration into a musical score.
Info: Sprüth Magers Gallery, 5900 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, Duration: 9/9-29/10/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.spruethmagers.com
