Busch-Reisinger Museum Presents Exhibition of German Artist Hanne Darboven’s Explorations of Time, History, and Contemporary Society

Hanne Darboven: Works 1969/1972/1983 Includes Works Never Before Exhibited in the United States

Cambridge, MA—August 1999—Hanne Darboven: Works 1969/1972/1983 showcases three decades of Darboven’s work and her continuing exploration of the relationship between aesthetic modernism and the treatment of history. Through a selection of works from each decade, Hanne Darboven reveals the complexity of the artist’s approach to time, history, and contemporary society. Focusing on Darboven’s use of a broad range of media, including handwritten and typewritten texts, photographs, and films, this exhibition demonstrates the range and intensity of one of Germany’s leading contemporary artists.

At the center of this exhibition, For Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1983) is an impressive 90-panel work that includes postcards, collaged photographs, and lithographic printing in addition to the artist’s signature handwritten calendrical counting. On loan from the Municipal Gallery in the Lenbachhaus in Munich, Germany, this work has never been exhibited in the United States. For Rainer Werner Fassbinder represents a critical engagement with the work of Fassbinder, one of post-WWII Germany’s most important and controversial film-makers. Hanne Darboven opens September 4 at the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, where it will remain on view through November 7.

Darboven (b. 1941) first exhibited in New York in the late 1960s, where she had extensive contact with Minimalist and Conceptual artists such as Donald Judd, Carl Andre, and Sol LeWitt. During that period, she began creating serial drawings, often in extensive sequences, based on systems of counting she derived from the calendar. This technique became central to Darboven’s work, and the two other pieces in the exhibition showcase this pivotal point in her career. An untitled work from 1969 (from the Panza Collection, on long term loan to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York) consists of 147 typewritten sheets of calendrical counting, a large-scale accumulation of possible visual formats and layouts for her renderings and calculations of dates.

A recent acquisition by the Busch-Reisinger Museum offers another tabular layout of numerical sequences and progressions. This 19-part untitled drawing of 1972, handwritten in ink on vellum and related to Darboven’s massive work Requiem (1971-1985), exemplifies the graphic complexity and originality of Darboven’s calendrical drawings. Since Darboven’s return from New York to her hometown of Hamburg in 1969, her work has evolved to encompass the diverse media and the challenging historical subject matter represented in For Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Hanne Darboven has received widespread international recognition for her unique and challenging projects. Since 1967, she has had major one-person shows in museums and galleries throughout Europe, as well as in New York, Chicago, and Toronto, and her work was included in the important international exhibitions, Documenta 5 (1972), 6 (1977), and 7 (1982) in Kassel, Germany. Darboven represented the Federal Republic of Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1982, and her 1997 work, 12 Monate (Europaarbeit) is part of the permanent exhibition in the recently re-opened Reichstag building in Berlin. This fall, Darboven will participate in the renowned exhibition of contemporary art, the Carnegie International, held in Pittsburgh.

"The Art Museums have a long history of scholarship and study in the field of German art and culture, and we are very pleased to present this exhibition which examines one of the most important artists working in Germany today. This exhibition will provide students and scholars with an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of Darboven’s work and the rich historical and cultural tradition which has helped shape her distinctive style," said James Cuno, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director, Harvard University Art Museums.

Hanne Darboven: Works 1969/1972/1983 is organized by Peter Nisbet, Daimler-Benz Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, with Brigid Doherty, Assistant Professor of the History of Art, The Johns Hopkins University, as co-curator. The exhibition and related programs and publications have been made possible by the generous support of the Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum.

"The Busch-Reisinger Museum has recently taken a particular interest in acquiring and presenting the work of postwar German artists who approach art issues that are cooler and more conceptual than their perhaps better known, more expressive and overtly emotional contemporaries," said Nisbet. "After exhibitions of the work of such artists as Bernhard and Anna Blume (1996), Günter Umberg (1997), and Ben Willikens (1998), we are very pleased to offer our students and visitors the chance to engage deeply with a variety of work by one of the most complex, dedicated, and individual artists working in Europe today."

Scholarly Programming
The Harvard University Art Museums are organizing an extensive series of gallery talks to accompany Hanne Darboven: Works 1969/1972/1983. On Saturday, October 23, the Busch-Reisinger Museum will offer a day of lectures on the theme: "Picturing History in the German Tradition: New Thinking on Hanne Darboven and Her Contemporaries." The Busch-Reisinger Museum will also enable visitors to explore other aspects of Darboven’s artistic talent. In collaboration with the Harvard Film Archive, the Busch-Reisinger Museum will sponsor a show of two of Darboven’s own films The Year 1968 in 6 Books in 6 Films of 1969 and The Moon is Risen of 1983. Also in conjunction with this exhibition, the Film Archive will show Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s internationally acclaimed film, The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978). A fully illustrated gallery guide will be published to accompany the exhibition.

The Busch-Reisinger Museum
The Busch-Reisinger Museum was founded in 1902 to reinforce the study of Germanic culture at Harvard University. Over the last ninety-six years, the Busch-Reisinger Museum and its collections have evolved and become a leading repository for the study of the art of the German-speaking countries. The Busch-Reisinger Museum’s rich collection consists of works from all periods, from the Middle Ages through the present, in a full range of media. The Museum is housed in Werner Otto Hall, accessible through the Fogg Art Museum. Providing a rich resource for scholars at Harvard and beyond, the Busch-Reisinger Museum is dedicated to promoting the critical understanding and enjoyment of the arts of German-speaking and related cultures of Central and Northern Europe.

The Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums comprise the Fogg Art Museum (founded in 1891, opened in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (founded in 1902, now housed in Werner Otto Hall), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (opened in 1985). The Straus Center for Conservation is located in the Fogg. Through their collections and professional practice programs, as well as a wide array of special exhibitions, scholarly programming and publications, loans, and educational initiatives and programs, the Art Museums serve Harvard University as a catalyst for instruction and scholarship, as a training ground for future academic art historians and museum professionals, and as a general resource for its diverse and growing national and international audiences.

The collections of the Art Museums consist of more than 150,000 objects in all media, with works ranging from antiquity to the present and from Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. The collections are divided among ten curatorial areas (Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics; Architecture and Design; Asian Art; Busch-Reisinger Museum; Drawings; Islamic and Later Indian Art; Modern and Contemporary Art; Paintings, Sculpture and Decorative Arts; Prints; and Photographs) and are comprehensive within their areas. Developed with an emphasis on their value for teaching and research, these holdings are a unique resource in terms of breadth and quality, and are enhanced continually through gifts and acquisitions. Together, they comprise one of the finest university art collections in the world, with resources rivaling those of many major public museums.

The Art Museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., and Sunday 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Closed National holidays. Admission is $5.00; $4.00 for senior citizens; $3.00 for students; free under 18 and to all individuals on Saturday mornings and all day on Wednesdays.

For general information, please call (617) 495-9400. All groups of 8 or more must be scheduled in advance, please call (617) 496-8576. Web site: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu. The Harvard University Art Museums is supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.