Candida Höfer, Komische Oper Berlin II, 2022, Inkjet print, Image: 180 x 250.8 cm, Frame: 184 x 254.8 cm. ©Candida Höfer / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022. Image provided by Kukje GalleryKukje Gallery presents “RENASCENCE,” a solo exhibition of new works by the internationally celebrated artist Candida Höfer, on view in K2 through July 28, 2024.
Four years since the artist’s solo exhibition in the gallery’s Busan space, this exhibition features 15 works selected from her latest series documenting historic buildings that underwent renovations during the pandemic, as well as previously photographed sites the artist has revisited. Over the past five decades, Höfer has photographed the interiors of culturally significant public spaces around the world, including libraries, museums, and concert halls with her signature compositional precision and detail.
The exhibition’s title “renascence,” which commonly refers to a revival of what has become obsolete, is situated at the intersecting issues of the physical and institutional “regeneration” of Western cultural spaces with deep historical resonances and the “recovery” of the public sphere after the paralysis caused by the pandemic.
In her photographs, the architectural renovations, which had already been underway since the 2010s for some of the museums featured, were carried out in strict accordance with restoration standards, focusing on retaining traces of the past while reorganizing the infrastructure to keep up with today’s requirements. Höfer’s camera lens captures this restraint, framing the architects’ methodical approach to the careful restoration of these diverse cultural landmarks as illuminated by the artist’s objective and neutral gaze.
Höfer, who has focused on an absence of inhabitants that inversely emphasizes rich social and historical implications of public spaces, reveals a unique framing of global adversities through a lens of recovery and renewal.
