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Hanne Darboven ( 1941-2009)

  • ARCO Foundation Collection, Madrid
  • Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
  • Dia:Beacon, Beacon / NY
  • Dia:Chelsea, New York
  • Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
  • Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
  • Kaiser-Wilhelm-Museum, Krefeld
  • Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen
  • MADRE, Neapel
  • Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach
  • Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main
  • Museum Küppersmühle, Duisburg
  • National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo
  • Bundeskunstsammlung, Bonn
  • Schaulager, Basel
  • Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.) in Gent

An impressive list and far from complete is this list of Museums that have a work or works by Hanne Darboven in their collection. Hanne Darboven was one of the most extreme Conceptual Artist from the last century. Making works with text, letters and numbers…always written and notated by hand in sequences reminding of the sequential works by the Minimal Art artists, by whom she was influenced ( LeWitt and Judd).

The calendar sequence has consistently formed the basis for the majority of her installations, and the ‘daily arithmetic’ consisting of checksums came to replace the year’s calendrical progression according to a complex and challenging mathematical logic. Always written out by hand, her paperwork thus comprised rows and rows of ascending and descending numbers, u-shapes, grids, line-notations and boxes. Employing this neutral language of numbers and using pen, pencil, the typewriter, and graph paper as materials, she began to make simple linear constructions of numbers that she called Konstruktionen. 

Whenever you encounter a Darboven, the detail is of less importance. It is the pure extreme large scale that impresses , which is the same reason that so little of her works are on permanent display. When you encounter one of Darboven’s works…. Take your time and experience the space and the walls, covered with her works from top to bottom and never forget it anymore.

Some nice publications available at www.ftn-books.com