CANDIDA HÖFER
Immagini di Architettura

The Bisazza Foundation for Design and Contemporary Architecture honors German photographer Candida Höfer, with an exhibition entitled "Candida Höfer. Images of Architecture", a journey through a selection of large-format photographs of classic and contemporary architecture, personally chosen by the artist, on display from May 9th to July 27th, 2014.

This represents new territory for the Bisazza Foundation, who will host in its spacious gallery rooms its first photographic show, in celebration of the work of one of the most influential photographers on the international scene.

Long the preferred subject matter of Candida Höfer's photography are the interiors of public spaces - museums, libraries, public archives, theaters, offices, banks, historic buildings – all photographed with straightforward composition and long exposure times, devoid of any human figures, and illuminated solely by ambient light. Her photographs are known for their unique sharpness and clarity and do not employ any form of digital enhancement.

Presented from this perspective, free of human occupants, her images of these temples of knowledge and learning offer the viewer the opportunity to establish an exclusive relationship with the space being portrayed, while immersed in solitary contemplation, where every detail (which might otherwise be invisible) can be captured by the eye.

These intimately subjective images are true “architectural portraits”, expressions of the unique and strikingly effective style for which Candida Höfer, who is also along with Bisazza Foundation curator of this show, has long been appreciated.

“The subjects of my work are public and semi-public spaces. I prefer them when they are without people. Spaces then seem to tell more about people, what they do for them and what people have been doing to them. Spaces are about light. This is why I photograph them in the light that I find in them, may it be natural or artificial light. Spaces have functions. Functions create similarities. I am fascinated by the differences in these similarities.”

Candida Höfer

“The exhibition will present a selection of images revealing the dichotomy between classic and contemporary architecture, and the photographer’s crisp and sharp eye, maintaining the same solid approach before the sumptuous decoration of the Palais Garnier in Paris as that used before the geometric lines of the SANAA-Gebäude in Essen, designed by the Japanese architecture firm. This is summarized in the image of Daniel Buren’s installation at the Neues Museum in Weimar, where the ancient and the modern coexist and complement one another."