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Photo Book Reviews

Architecture of Absence (Aperture) by Candida Höfer Reviewed by José M. Gonzalez Article rating: 9.00

German born photographer Candida Höfer showcases her illustrious career while emphasizing her more recent work over the last two years in her latest book, Architecture of Absence. The book contains fifty color photographs that span her more than thirty years photographing interior spaces, and three essays by Constance W. Glenn and Mary-Kay Lombino, both of the University of Art Museum, and Virginia Heckert of the Norton Museum of Art. The essays collectively analyze Höfer’s work, comparing it to her mentors, contemporaries, and to German photographers that came before her.

Höfer studied under Bernd and Hilla Becher from 1976 through 1982 at the prestigious Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. Her work encompasses much of the Becher influence as well as her Becher School counterparts Axel Hütte, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Ruff. They all have managed to achieve monumental work in photographing architecture with varying techniques in using angle, color, exposure, and composition to define space.

Architecture of Absence highlights Höfer’s work not just as an offshoot of the Becker School, but by separating her from the work that came out of that school. She is a distinct artist with distinct techniques and ideas about how she approaches her subjects.

She prefers to photograph her interiors empty as opposed to catching the quirky day-to-day activity and nuances of any space. One would think that this would give the space coldness, and to many other photographers it would. But, Höfer manages to bring life and humanity to space by the absence of people and activity.

Space without people becomes color, pattern, potential, and it positively breathes with life when photographed correctly. Höfer has mastered it. In her earlier work she introduces the viewer into the spaces at an angle, which is unique. This affords the viewer the experience of entering the interiors as if for the first time, a very personal experience.

In her more recent work, through the use of higher angles, she takes a more stately direct view of her spaces. This allows her to show of more pattern and repetition, which really highlights the use of the public spaces she chooses to photograph; the libraries, museums, theaters, etc… Without the human element in the photograph, the onlooker is free to imagine what happens in the room, thus giving the room humanity.

Her photograph of U-Bahnstation, Theaterplatz Oslo II (2000) really captures the feel of her more recent work. Like all of her work, when viewing her spaces, the point of reference the eye is lead to; is into the room, very different from her Becker contemporaries. In this picture the eye is led dead center into a square frame, creating pattern exploding from the center.

U-Bahnstation, Theaterplatz Oslo II (2000) is also a wonderful example of Höfer’s technique of exploiting the available light and reflection, creating other layers of warmth and pattern to her pieces. Her photograph of the Neue National Galerie Berlin VII (2001) illustrates how the tiled grid reflective floor shining the light from the window creates not only a symmetry with the grid ceiling, but almost seems as though the marble column and floor really begin lower than where they are.

Candida Höfer’s Architecture of Absence is a wonderful anthology of a master. Her background in the Becher School really honed her skill as a photographer and artist, but did not define her complete artistic aesthetic. Her use of higher angles, available light, and reflection in empty space to define human space sets her apart from her counterparts while warming and inviting the viewer into her photographs. Architecture of Absence is a magnificent collection of photographs that will inspire the creativity, technique, and the possibility of photographing interior subjects, viewing them with a new eye.

>>Click here to purchase Architecture of Absence from University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach...

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