Hanne Darboven

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.  Darboven has particitpated in many international exhibitions, and has also had numerous one-person shows in Europe and North America.

Her work has been informed by Conceptual art practices, based in forms of numerical writing and systematic work in the realm of abstraction and universality.  Later in her career in 1978, whe introduced visual documentation alongside her works of looping texts and numbers, primarily in the form of found and rephotographed images, which allowed her to address specific historical issues for the first time.

Weaving together cultural, social, and historical references with autobiographical documents, it synthesizes collective memorey with personal history, the social with the private.

*Dia:Beacon, Lynne Cooke and Michael Govan, Dia Art Foundation, 2003