Candida Höfer

Libraries

Umberto Eco

Maik Schlüter

"Nobody photographs libraries, those splendid and intimate cathedrals of knowledge, as beautifully as Candida Hofer. Her photographs are sober and restrained in feel- the atmosphere is disturbed by neither visitors nor users, especially as she forgoes any staging of the locations. The emptiness is imbued with substance by a subtle attention to colour, and the prevailing silence instilled with a metaphysical quality that gives voice to the objects, over and above the eloquence of the furnishings or the pathos of the architecture." "This volume contains Hofer's famously ascetic images of the British Library in London, the Escorial in Spain, the Whitney Museum and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, the Bibliotheque nationale de France in Paris, the Villa Medici in Rome and the Hamburg University Library, among others. Umberto Eco introduces the collection with a witty reflection on the role of libraries in all our lives."--BOOK JACKET.

Biblioteche

Gerda Wendermann

The German city of Weimar, home to illustrious Renaissance and Baroque artists such as Cranach and Bach, became a major place of pilgrimage in the 18th century, . With her famous library and with distinguished literary circles, Duchess Anna Amalia laid the foundations for the flourishing of literary expression in teh city. Her son, Duke Karl August, called Herder, Goethe and Schiller to his court. With them, Weimar became the center of German intellectual life, the "city of poets and thinkers"--a reputation Weimar has nurtured to the present day. For her libraries project, Candida Hofer photgraphed the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in 2004. Shortly afterwards it fell victim to a fire. In summer 2006, she focused on historic interior spaces: the Goethe National Museum, the Residential Palace and other castles, as well as various theaters. Hofer's photographic style perfectly captures Weimar's special aura. Her strictly composed pictures seem to contain the spirit of the Enlightenment.

Weimar

José Saramago

Centro Cultural de Belém

Shelley Rice

Portugal is a small country with a great past. Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India turned the independent kingdom of Portugal into the leading sea and colonial power in the Western world. Lisbon, presumably founded by the Phoenicians, was one of Europe's richest cities in the heyday of the Age of Discovery. Today, Portugal's monasteries and churches, its palaces, libraries, opera houses, and museums which have survived evoke past glory with immense murals composed of colored tiles and ornate sculptural decor.

em Portugal

From 2004 to 2007, the noted German art photographer Candida Hofer traveled the world to photograph Japanese-born, New York-based Conceptual artist On Kawara's iconic Date Paintingsin the homes of private collectors. Because this series of paintings always and only depicts one specific date--in bold, white, capital letters against a darker monochromatic ground--collectors often choose their own for a sentimental reason like a birthday, a special anniversary or an important day in history. Because of this, the paintings are often given pride of place within a collection; in many cases they are situated in a place where the collector spends much of his or her time. All this being said, Kawara is widely considered one of the most important artists of the postwar era, and his work can be found in many of the most significant private collections in the world--among them Friedrich Christian Flick's, Leonard and Luise Riggio's, David and Monica Zwirner's, Kasper König's, Jutta Linthe and Walther König's, Thomas Struth's and Yvon Lambert's. Thus Hofer's photographs capture the paintings in very good company, both in terms of their artistic companions and of the overall aesthetics of the spaces they inhabit.

Date Paintings in Private Collections

On Kawara

Fotografier fra forskellige biblioteker fotograferet af den tyske fotograf Candida Höfer. Forord til bogen er skrevet af Umberto Eco.

Candida Höfer

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