Candida Höfer: Opera de Paris

by Candida Höfer (Contributor)

Candida Höfer’s works have something timeless about them, and opera is perhaps the most timeless cultural delight. Having dedicated a photographic series to the cathedrals of knowledge that are libraries, Höfer in her most recent cycle captures opera houses, the palaces of performing arts. Höfer’s earlier pictures of public spaces―libraries, lecture halls, museums, meeting rooms―forever devoid of people, made us sense the presence of those absent. Her opera photographs take us one step empty foyers, orchestras, stages, wings, and boxes make us imagine both theprotagonists―performers and audience―and the fictitious figures, plots, and places that populate these venues during a night at the opera. In her most recent publication Candida Höfer portrays two Paris opera houses that are exemplary for their age and the neoclassicist Palais Garnier (1875), original Phantom of the Opera site, and the modern-style Opéra Bastille (1989).

80 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2006

About the author

Candida Höfer (German, b.1944) is a photographer known for her large-format images of architectural interiors, which address the psychological environment of social and cultural institutions by acknowledging how public spaces are designed to accommodate and inform the public. After completing studies at the Cologne Werkschule, she enrolled in the Düsseldorf School of Art, where she was taught by Bernd and Hilla Becher, heavily influenced by the formal qualities of the austere documentary photography they endorsed.

Along with fellow German artists Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Ruff, Höfer's work became internationally recognized in the 1980s, and her subject matter expanded to include a myriad of places rooted in cultural formation and preservation, including museums, libraries, universities, theaters, civic centers, and historic sites. She has held numerous solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States, and her work has been included in several group shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Documenta XI in Kassel, and the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. In 2003, Höfer represented Germany in the Venice Biennale with fellow compatriot, Martin Kippenberger. She lives and works in Cologne, Germany.