Art in America - March 2016_

152 MARCH 2016 EXHIBITION REVIEWS

tures she commissioned andigurines or items she bought at

lea markets. With an ironic nod to trends in contemporary

art, she once wryly remarked: “his is not Minimal but

Maximal art.”

Such is the magnitude of Darboven’s oeuvre that it

easilyilled two of the largest exhibition spaces in Germany.

he Haus der Kunst in Munich and the Bundeskunsthalle

in Bonn organized a two-venue retrospective, each institu-

tion focusing on adiferent part of her practice.he Munich

showing, “Enlightenment,” concentrated on Darboven’s

working method and her exploration of the history of sci-

ence as well as her research into literary and culturaligures.

For example, herErf indungen, die unsere Welt verändert haben

(Inventions that Changed the World), 1996, is dedicated

to transportation and communication technologies, such as

Gutenberg’s printing press. In Bonn, “Time Histories” con-

sidered her stance on political events and German history,

placing her biography at center stage.

he Haus der Kunst presentation was divided into 11

rooms and showcased works from the late 1960s to 2000. he

music room from Darboven’s Hamburg studio was recon-

structed here. It contains Darboven’s collection of musical

instruments arranged in groups, along with various types of

documents, her correspondence and an assortment of sculptures

from Africa. In an interview she once said that her aim was

German artist Hanne Darboven (1941-2009) was essentially

the opposite of Herman Melville’s character Bartleby, the

Scrivener. While Bartleby, at his law-oice job, one day

refused to do his work of copying documents by hand—

a decision that escalated to his rejection of everything, even

eating—nothing, it seems, could keep Darboven from

writing. During her self-imposed, strictly regimented eight-

hour workdays, she generated row upon row of handwritten

numbers, U shapes, boxes and other notations,illing tens

of thousands of pieces of paper over the course of her four-

decade career.

After a two-year stay in New York, when she met some

of the main protagonists of Conceptual art, including Sol

LeWitt, with whom she maintained a close friendship,

Darboven returned in 1968 to her native Hamburg, where

she remained until her death. During the late ’60s, she began

producing her signature work, which—serving as a method

of marking time—involved translating calendars and the

like into new numerical or visual systems based on her own

inscrutable calculations.he resultant framed sheets covered

countless yards of wall fromloor to ceiling.

In the late 1970s Darboven began creating installations

that encompassed her handwritten pieces, collages (incorpo-

rating magazine pages, postcards and photographs, among

other items) and three-dimensional elements, such as sculp-

HANNE DARBOVEN

MUNICH AND BONN — Haus der Kunst and Bundeskunsthalle

View of Hanne
Darboven’s mixed-
medium installation
Quartett “88”
(Quartet “88”),1988,
at the Haus der
Kunst.