CANDIDA HÖFER

Candida Höfer, Municipal Calais I, 2001, C-Print, 155 x 172,5 cm, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016

With her photography, Candida Höfer examines forms and structures of spaces as well as the meaning of details in the architectural styles used. Whereas at the beginning of her photographic career she photographed mainly people, the photo artist has now devoted herself in the course of her work more to portraying spaces and places. By referring to the absence of people in her work, she emphasizes all the more the topography and architecture mirrored in society and time. Which meaning can a place have? What is it based on? What is architecture? Candida Höfer portrays spaces as reflections on their condition and those who are responsible for creating them in the first place. Libraries, concert halls, theaters – all of these refer to something that fills the space with function, sound and life. The viewer not only sees, but associates and discovers beyond the pictures themselves his own and a collective world of experience.

Candida Höfer was born in Eberswalde in 1944. She lives and works in Cologne.