“Through the Lens of Candida Höfer,” interview profile courtesy AsiaAlter

In Lost Places: Sites of photography at Hamberger Kunsthalle in Germany (through September 23, 2012), 20 innovative contemporary photographers respond to the question: ”What happens to real places if a space loses its usual significance and can be experienced on a virtual plane?”

These artists, many who came out of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s renowned Dusseldorf School of Photography, which championed the de-emphasis of the perspective of the photographer and focus on the object’s command over the frame, present the documentation of landscape at a time when traditional notions of “space” and “place,” for better or worse, are rapidly changing.

Artist included in the exhibition are: Thomas Demand (b. 1964), Omer Fast (b. 1972), Beate Gütschow (b. 1970), Andreas Gursky (b. 1955), Candida Höfer (b. 1944), Sabine Hornig (b. 1964), Jan Köchermann (b. 1967), Barbara Probst (b. 1964), Alexandra Ranner (b. 1967), Ben Rivers (b. 1972), Thomas Ruff (b. 1958), Gregor Schneider (b. 1969), Sarah Schönfeld (b. 1979), Joel Sternfeld (b. 1944), Thomas Struth (b. 1954), Guy Tillim (b. 1962), Jörn Vanhöfen (b. 1961), Jeff Wall (b. 1946) and Tobias Zielony (b. 1973).

Gursky, Höfer, Ruff, Struth, and Wall were all featured in Stefan Gronert’s large-format volume The Dusseldorf School of Photography (Aperture 2010). In the fascinating video series “Contacts: The Renewal of Contemporary Photography,” Gursky and Wall describe the methodology behind their work.

In 2005, Aperture also published Höfer’s monograph Architecture of Absence, which features her meticulously composed images of public spaces marked with the richness of human activity, yet largely devoid of human presence.

Gütschow, “who constructs cityscapes and landscapers that are reminiscent of well-known places, but that do not allow any true reference” for her photographs in this exhibition, did a monograph with Aperture as well in 2007 called LS/S.

Work by Joel Sternfeld was featured in Aperture issue 192 and 180. Guy Tillim appears in Aperture issue 193.

Lost Places: Sites of Photography
Exhibition on view:
June 8 – September 23, 2012

Hamberger Kunsthalle
GlockengieBerwall 20095
Hamburg, Germany
+49 (0) 40-428-131-200

Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra IV, 2006. © Candida Höfer

Library Science

Exhibition on view:
November 12, 2011–January 28, 2012

Artspace:
50 Orange Street
New Haven, CT
(203) 772-2709

Library Science is a multi-artist exhibition currently on view at Artspace. Featuring over 20 contemporary artists, including photographers Candida Höfer and Mickey Smith, the exhibit features art inspired by libraries. Library Science examines how the relationship between readers, books, and libraries are changing in our digital era and it hopes to encourage librarians to build relationships with artists and to continue providing access to artistic information for library goers.

PROJECTS: DONE is an exhibition of works from fourteen projects completed by photographer Candida Höfer between 1968 and 2008. Architects Kuehn Malvezzi developed displays in close cooperation with Höfer, and collaborated with curators Markus Heinzelmann and Doreen Mende to create rumination on the interplay between photography, architecture and presentation as the fifteenth project. Here, the term “project” is associated with a planned work that reaches a point of completion or achievement and is thereby distinct from regular artistic activity. By the consideration of the exhibition as a project unto its self, the concept of “project” becomes a sum of smaller project-components bound by themes and limited by time and space. By exploring this “inner order” of art, Candida Höfer’s photographs become less about what is being presented in the frame, and move toward a provocative reflection on art, as it exists in the world.

Click here to view Candida Höfer: Architecture of Absence, published by Aperture.

CANDIDA HÖFER
Saturday, May 16—Sunday, August 2, 2009
Museum Morsbroich
Gustav-Heinemann-Str. 80
D-51377 Leverkusen
Germany
++49 (0)2 14/85 556-0