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Biblioteca Riccardiana Firenze I 2008
Artist
Candida Höfer
(Born 1944, Germany)
Date2008
MediumC-print
DimensionsSheet: 97 5/8 x 70 7/8 in. (247.97 x 180.02 cm)
Framed: 99 1/4 x 72 1/2 x 2 3/8 in. (252.1 x 184.15 x 6.03 cm)
Framed: 99 1/4 x 72 1/2 x 2 3/8 in. (252.1 x 184.15 x 6.03 cm)
Credit LineCollection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase
Object number2014.23
Status
Not on viewCopyright© Candida Höfer / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Category
Label TextCandida Höfer makes large-scale photographs of interiors. Her images typically depict public institutions such as libraries, theaters, museums, and churches—collective spaces of gathering and contemplation. However, the artist presents these spaces entirely devoid of people. In Höfer’s photographs, the architectural interior itself becomes the object of contemplation for the viewer.
Biblioteca Riccardiana Firenze I 2008, 2008, presents the interior of the library (constructed in 1670) at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence. The symmetrical composition plunges the viewer’s eye into a double-height vaulted gallery lavishly decorated in the Baroque style and lined with bookshelves. In the center, a long library table leads to the back of the room, where bright light streams through the semicircular window and the white curtain drawn over the rear doorway. The photograph contains dizzying detail, from the marble floors, ceiling fresco, and ornate moldings to the text on the spines of the volumes lining the shelves.
Along with Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, and others, Höfer is associated with the Düsseldorf School of Photography, so-called because the artists all studied with Bernd and Hilla Becher in Düsseldorf in the 1970s. Each artist in the group has extended the Bechers’ methodical approach to capturing physical spaces while embracing the technical advancements of digital photography. The work of these photographers is characterized by a combination of razor-sharp detail and a wall-sized scale that was previously restricted to the genre of painting.
Biblioteca Riccardiana Firenze I 2008, 2008, presents the interior of the library (constructed in 1670) at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence. The symmetrical composition plunges the viewer’s eye into a double-height vaulted gallery lavishly decorated in the Baroque style and lined with bookshelves. In the center, a long library table leads to the back of the room, where bright light streams through the semicircular window and the white curtain drawn over the rear doorway. The photograph contains dizzying detail, from the marble floors, ceiling fresco, and ornate moldings to the text on the spines of the volumes lining the shelves.
Along with Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, and others, Höfer is associated with the Düsseldorf School of Photography, so-called because the artists all studied with Bernd and Hilla Becher in Düsseldorf in the 1970s. Each artist in the group has extended the Bechers’ methodical approach to capturing physical spaces while embracing the technical advancements of digital photography. The work of these photographers is characterized by a combination of razor-sharp detail and a wall-sized scale that was previously restricted to the genre of painting.