Hanne Darboven
Born 1941, Munich, Germany
Lives and works in Hamburg, Germany

Since the 1960s, Hanne Darboven has focused her art-making on daily "writings" that chronicle existence and evoke the passage of time. The 2,782 typed and hand-written daily writings or drawings that make up Leben, leben/Life, living represent Darboven’s systematic approach to counting the years 1900 to 1999. These drawings make visible two orders of time: the actual time taken to create them and the historical time that they summarize. Darboven asserts the presentness of time by marking its passage in a literal form that also takes up volumetric space when the writings are installed in a large gallery.

The work also includes two dollhouses that are part of Darboven’s extensive collection of popular artifacts. The houses, photos of which are included in the installation, also mark time as one represents a nineteenth-century German home and the other a house from the 1950s.

Hanne Darboven, Leben, leben/Life, living, 1997-98, 2,782 works on paper, 11 13/16 x 7 7/8 in. (30 x 20 cm) each; 32 photographs, 11 13/16 x 7 7/8 in. (30 x 20 cm) each; 2 dollhouses, installation dimensions variable (installation view)

Hanne Darboven, Leben, leben/Life, living, 1997-98, 2,782 works on paper, 11 13/16 x 7 7/8 in. (30 x 20 cm) each; 32 photographs, 11 13/16 x 7 7/8 in. (30 x 20 cm) each; 2 dollhouses, installation dimensions variable (installation view)

Hanne Darboven has exhibited extensively for over thirty years, participating in many important international exhibitions, including documenta 5 (1972), documenta 6 (1977), documenta 7 (1982), Kassel, and 40th Venice Biennale (1982). Her work has also been presented in such major survey shows as 1965-1975: Reconsidering the Object of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1995); and Die Epoche der Moderne: Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (1997). Darboven’s first solo exhibition with Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, was in 1973. Recent solo exhibitions include Hanne Darboven: Evolution Leibniz, 1986, Sprengel Museum Hannover (1996); Hanne Darboven: Kulturgeschichte, 1880-1983, Dia Center for the Arts, New York (1996-97); Hanne Darboven: Kinder dieser Welt, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (1997); Stone of wisdom/ Stein der weisen 1996, Sperone Westwater, New York (1998); and Hanne Darboven: Menschen und Landschaften, Hallen für Neue Kunst, Schaffhausen (1999).

Education
1965 Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg

Selected Further Reading 
Hallen für Neue Kunst, Schaffhausen, Germany. Hanne Darboven: Menschen und Landschaften (1999). Exhibition catalogue.

Dia Center for the Arts, New York. Hanne Darboven: Kulturgeschichte 1880-1983 (1996). Exhibition brochure, text by Lynne Cooke.

Goethe-Institut, London, and Ostfildern, Germany. Hanne Darboven. Konstruiert, Literarisch, Musikalisch/ Constructed, Literary, Musical: The Sculpting of Time (1994). Exhibition catalogue, text by Ingrid Burgbacher-Krupka, including an interview with the artist.

Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Germany. Hanne Darboven: Die Geflügelte Erde, Requiem (1991). Exhibition catalogue.

Bruggen, Coosje van. “Today Crossed Out.” In Hanne Darboven: Urzeit/ Uhrzeit. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1990.

Selected Links  
www.diacenter.org/exhibs/darboven/project/