Kulturgeschichte 1880-1983 (Cultural History 1880–1983),

2003

These are two prints from an edition that reproduces the nearly 1,600 panels of Darboven’s Cultural History 1880–1983 (1980–83), a monumental arrangement of postcards, photographs, magazine covers, and other graphic materials that are framed and displayed in floor-to-ceiling grids and accompanied by nineteen so-called sculpture-objects, some found, some fabricated to the artist’s specifications. The work juxtaposes materials from Darboven’s art with materials variously related to historical events and everyday occurrences that took place during the period framed in the work’s title. One of these panels displays a grid of New York City doorways borrowed from a conceptual art project by the American artist Roy Colmer, who photographed the doorways in 1975 and paired them with a typewritten index of corresponding street addresses. The other features a grid of picture postcards, many from locations important to Darboven, including the Harburg district of Hamburg, where she lived, and Denmark, where her mother was born.