Hanne Darboven was born in Munich in 1941. Following a brief episode as a pianist, she studied painting at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg. Between 1966 and 1969 she lived intermittently in New York City, then returned to her family home in Hamburg, where she continues to live and work. Her first one-person show was at the Galerie Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, in 1967…
Hanne Darboven entwickelte in den sechziger Jahren ein Konzept zur Fortschreibung von Zeit und formalisierte es in einer Abfolge von abstrakten Schreibzeilen und Gruppierungen von Zahlen. Sie wurde angeregt durch ihre Begegnung mit Künstlern der Minimal Art, vor allem Carl Andre und Sol LeWitt, in New York, wo sie sich 1966/67 aufhielt…
Although Darboven’s work has been taken into collections worldwide, there’s has also been a corresponding neglect, at least in the English-speaking world, of the significance and range – in all its historic, aesthetic and political manifestations – of her work. Certainly there are honourable exceptions – one being Dan Adler’s volume on Darboven’s vast installation, Cultural History 1880-1983 (1980-83), that has recently published by Afterall Books – but these are few…