This photograph for the Shelter Foundation comes from a series, compiled over several years, depicting libraries throughout the world. The sublime room seen here becomes “legible” in visual layers. The clear structure of the temple-like architecture imposes itself before the rigidly ordered volumes, and at the same time it offers artistically playful elements in the form of the railings and barrel vaulting. The room is laden with multiple levels of significance, all of which have been captured here in this one, condensed perspective.
Candida Höfer (*1944 Eberswalde, Germany; resides in Cologne, Germany)
Candida Höfer, Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth are among the most important proponents of the Düsseldorf School of Photography. Influenced by the teachings of Bernd Becher at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, since the 1980’s she has been engaged in depicting public spaces—public spaces that are always empty, thus allowing aesthetic form to bear witness to their social meaning. Her work has garnered high praise internationally and has been seen in major exhibitions, as for example the documenta (2002) and the Biennale in Venice (2003).
