Un/Writing “Woman” and its Epistemological Implications in Hanne Darboven’s 1970s Writing Practice

Abstract

This article examines the 1970s writing practice of German Conceptual artist Hanne Darboven (1941–2009) as an intervention in established knowledge, conducted from a woman’s perspective. This new angle on Darboven’s writing arises from the artist’s statement “i am a woman, writing, hanne” and her largely overlooked encounters with the burgeoning feminist initiatives in art during the 1970s, and calls for a reevaluation of her writing-based oeuvre. Drawing from Darboven’s statement “i am a woman, writing, hanne” in a 1973 letter to feminist curator Lucy Lippard, I examine how Darboven’s writing introduces contradictions and conflicts as impactful critical operations. Darboven’s approach – writing “woman” into illegibility – serves as a form of deconstruction that exposes the instability of gender and thus of categories that organize (or, better yet, produce) our knowledge about the world. This qualifies Darboven’s writing practice as a sophisticated, yet subtle political project developed in response to both 1970s feminist initiatives and the patriarchal art world.