POINT OF VIEW | Höfer captured this image, titled 'Teatro Scientifico Bibiena Mantova I,' (2010) of an 18th-century theater in Mantua, Italy, with an Alpa digital camera. She does not use lighting equipment. 'I only use the light that is in the space,' she says. 'I walk through and decide very quickly—usually by instinct—the point from where to take the photograph.' Part of an edition of six, the print (70.8 x 96.8 inches) is priced at 50,000 euros.
Now on display at Ben Brown Fine Arts in London is the work of photographer Candida Höfer, whose austere yet opulent large-format prints of institutional interiors have made her one of the most beloved artists in her native Germany. Like her contemporaries Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky, Höfer specializes in the sublime twist—the moment when apparent simplicity gives way to narrative complexity. For her latest series, the Cologne-based artist traveled to northern Italy: Mantua, Vicenza and Sabbioneta. the resulting prints, says 69-year-old Höfer, are "simultaneously about today and our history—this makes them so vivid, even when some of them may seem rather bland at first sight." It was cold inside the buildings, "but there was always espresso," she says, "and the light in the buildings."
Corrections & Amplifications
The image accompanying this article is titled "Teatro Scientifico Bibiena Mantova I." An earlier version of the caption called it "Teatro Scientifico Bibiena Mantova III."
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