Architectural space
between presence and absence
Candida Höfer comes from the Düsseldorf School, along with Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Alex Hütte. Since the 1980s, her large-scale photographs have embodied, in their own particular style, the photographic objectivity defined in the late 1960s by Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie.
By choosing her subjects in architectural spaces, taking photographs in prestigious theatre and opera houses, libraries and palace interiors, she strives to express one of the special characteristics of photography, the art of expressing links: links with the past, links with the Other, and even the link between presence and absence. She takes it as axiomatic that representing this absence makes spaces more relevant in their relationship with the public. In an interview with Sarah Phillips, Höfer observes that “what people do in these spaces and how these spaces act on them is clearer when there is no one there, just like when the absent host becomes the subject of the conversation”.
Temporality as the demarcation of space when taking a shot also enters into this potential relationship with architectural decorum. In the same way, the approach dictated by the patience and endurance of the artist in this architectural space emptied of people imposes its time, its light, its lines, its structure and its point of view, on the image. So the human presence is not totally absent, because it appears in this photography, at once neutral and pregnant with its own aura, through the artifices, artefacts and other details of these interiors that go to create an aesthetic that emphasises the strength and power of the internal space.
These almost pictorial compositions fill the momentary emptiness with the significant and memorable lived experiences that emanate from the site in a photographic reconstruction of architectural space.
(text by Paul di Felice)
41A avenue J.F. Kennedy L-2082 Luxembourg Luxembourg DD/MM/YYYY trueArchitectural space
between presence and absence
Candida Höfer comes from the Düsseldorf School, along with Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Alex Hütte. Since the 1980s, her large-scale photographs have embodied, in their own particular style, the photographic objectivity defined in the late 1960s by Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie.
By choosing her subjects in architectural spaces, taking photographs in prestigious theatre and opera houses, libraries and palace interiors, she strives to express one of the special characteristics of photography, the art of expressing links: links with the past, links with the Other, and even the link between presence and absence. She takes it as axiomatic that representing this absence makes spaces more relevant in their relationship with the public. In an interview with Sarah Phillips, Höfer observes that “what people do in these spaces and how these spaces act on them is clearer when there is no one there, just like when the absent host becomes the subject of the conversation”.
Temporality as the demarcation of space when taking a shot also enters into this potential relationship with architectural decorum. In the same way, the approach dictated by the patience and endurance of the artist in this architectural space emptied of people imposes its time, its light, its lines, its structure and its point of view, on the image. So the human presence is not totally absent, because it appears in this photography, at once neutral and pregnant with its own aura, through the artifices, artefacts and other details of these interiors that go to create an aesthetic that emphasises the strength and power of the internal space.
These almost pictorial compositions fill the momentary emptiness with the significant and memorable lived experiences that emanate from the site in a photographic reconstruction of architectural space.
(text by Paul di Felice)
L-2082 Luxembourg, Luxembourg