Publications

Hanne Darboven

Quartett >88<

"The materials consist of paper and pencil with which I draw my conceptions, write words and numbers, which are the simplest means for putting down my ideas; for ideas do not depend on materials. The nature of ideas is immateriality." -Hanne Darboven

No book by Hanne Darboven is merely an account of the exhibition. Darboven has always seen exhibition and printing as parallel, albeit radically different, experiences. The books offer a more intimate interaction with her mathematically convoluted systems and diaristic notation. The artist's hermetic and cerebral form of poetry receives one of its most careful presentations in this splendid artist's book. Quartet >88<, shown at The Renaissance Society in 1989, is a powerful homage to Gertrude Stein, Rosa Luxemburg, Marie Curie and Virginia Woolf, and continues the artist's long investigation of time, memory, and what the act of writing can mean. In her works, writing becomes a task in and of itself, removed from notions of narration, a persistent labor enacting the human desire to record the passing of time. Darboven's installation consisted of over 700 framed tableaux that covered the walls of the gallery, each of which is reproduced in this hardcover volume.