Candida Höfer

Candida Höfer ( born February 4, 1944 in Eberswalde ) is a well-known German photographer. It is regarded as representative of the Düsseldorf School of Photography.

Life

Born in Eberswalde, the daughter of journalist Werner Höfer, she grew up in Cologne. From 1963 to 1964 Candida Höfer studied in the renowned photo studio Schmölz - Huth in Cologne as an intern and studied subsequently to 1968, artistic photography with Arno Jansen at the Cologne factory schools. After a brief photographic practice in Hamburg and the employees in the photo studio Werner Bokelberg she took in 1973 a further study with Ole John in film class at the Dusseldorf Art Academy on. From 1976 on she was a student of Bernd Becher. In 1982, she completed her studies. From 1997 to 2000 she was a professor of photography at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe. She is a member of the Free Academy of the Arts in Hamburg.

Candida Höfer is one of the most internationally acclaimed German photographer. In addition, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Axel Hütte and others it belongs to the group of Becher students belonging to the international photographic avant-garde of the present.

Work

At the beginning of her artistic work, photographed Candida Höfer still people. So they created a documentary about Turkish immigrants in Germany. She is best known, however, with the photographs of interiors, with which they began in the early 1980s. She created comprehensive standard to public spaces such as libraries, lecture halls, concert halls and sports halls, cafes, museums but also zoos and other indoor places. Indicative of the recordings is the absence of people. These appear only as absent, as they are in reality the photographed rooms just indicative of their function. The rooms documented by Höfer get their color photographs a unique presence that goes beyond the functional significance of the rooms. Ulf Erdmann Ziegler certified Candida Höfer indoors in the Frankfurter Rundschau, a sense of " timelessness and immutability ." In contrast to their teachers Bernd and Hilla Becher, also unlike Gursky and Struth, they initially did not use a large format camera. In her current work, however, already.

Candida Höfer took in 2002 at the Documenta 11 in Kassel in part and represented alongside Martin Kippenberger Germany at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. Since 2010 she is a member of the class of the arts in the North Rhine- Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Candida Höfer lives and works in Cologne.

Exhibitions

Group Exhibition

• 2010: Ruhrblicke, Zeche Zollverein, Essen
• 2011: Kunsthalle Darmstadt goes to school, Kunsthalle Darmstadt

Awards and Honors

• Ars viva prize of the Cultural Committee of German Business within the BDI eV 1986
• Art Prize Finkenwerder in 2007 ( for lifetime achievement )

Publications

• 2009: Candida Höfer: Napoli, architectural photographs. Schirmer Mosel, Munich, ISBN 978-3-8296-0424-6.