Sean Kelly is delighted to announce From Düsseldorf, a solo exhibition of recent work by prominent German photographer Candida Höfer. This will be Höfer’s first exhibition with the gallery and her first exhibition in New York since 2013. An opening reception will take place on Thursday May 7 from 6:00 to 8:00pm, the artist will be present.
On view for the first time in the United States, the photo-graphs presented in this exhibition were all taken in Düssel-dorf, Germany — the city where Höfer first studied photog-raphy under Bernd and Hilla Becher and which, to this day, remains an important influence on her work. In the mid 70s, Höfer and her peers at the exalted Kunstakademie, known as The Düsseldorf School of Photography, created one of the most remarkable artistic movements in Germany since the Bauhaus. In the years following, Höfer has continued to photograph Düsseldorf with a fresh eye, re-vealing an entirely new, and unexpected, minimalist direction in her work.
Alongside the meticulously composed, large-scale, color images of interiors for which Höfer is known, the ex-hibition presents work from the artist’s remarkable new body of work. Höfer’s latest compositions focus primari-ly on architectural detail and structure, color and form, utilizing extreme angles and close-ups to interrogate abstract forms. These fascinating new images juxtaposed against the Baroque churches, Rococo halls, and Modern opera houses, quintessentially representative of Höfer’s oeuvre, create an exciting visual dialogue that explores the past, present, and future of both the city and the artist.
Höfer's internationally recognized work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalles in Basel and in Berne, the Museum Folkwang in Essen, the Louvre in Paris, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Museum Kunst Palast in Dusseldorf and, most recently, at the Kunstmuseum Luzerne. Her work has also appeared in group exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Power Plant, Toronto; Kusthaus Bregenz; Mu-seum Ludwig, Cologne; the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; and Documenta XI, Kassel. Höfer represented Germany at the 2003 Venice Biennale. Her photographs are in major public and private collections worldwide.
Candida Höfer: Düsseldorf, a monograph published by Richter | Fey Verlag in collaboration with the Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, will be available at the gallery during the exhibition.