Photographer focus: the interiors

PROVO — Architectural photographer Candida Hofer purposely leaves people out of her work as she objectively captures the patterns of rhythm and color in public and institutional interiors.

The photographs are of libraries, academic facilities, lecture and performance halls, painting and sculpture galleries, waiting rooms and cafes. The first North American exhibition of "Candida Hofer: Architecture of Absence," opens Sept. 15 at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art and continues through Jan. 6.

The 50 large chromogenic prints encompass the full spectrum of the German photographer's career, while emphasizing her most recent work, a museum spokesman said.

"She's an artist photographer versus a commercial photographer," the museum's Curator of Photography Diana Turnbow said.

Hofer's work is mostly for museums and collectors, but she also accepts commissioned work. She does all of her work in the camera, rather than during the printing process, Turnbow said.

Hofer is the senior member of a group of students from the Dusseldorf Academy who studied under professor Bernd Becher in the 1970s and 1980s. The work is considered the most influential German art school of the time, the spokesman said.

Hofer's work is most closely aligned to her teachers than other students now in their mid-careers, Turnbow said.

She has exhibited throughout Europe and the United States since 1975, including solo exhibitions at the Hamburger Hunsthalle, Germany; the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; and the Centre Photographique d'Ille de France. She participated in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Kunsthaus Bregenz; the Museum Ludwig, Cologne; and Documenta 11, among others. In 2003, she represented Germany at the Venice Biennale together with the late Martin Kippenberger.

At BYU, the exhibition will be in the Conway A. Ashton & Carl E. Jackman Gallery on the museum's lower level. A companion exhibition will be on view in the Paul & Betty Boshard Gallery, also on the lower level.

"Types and Typologies: German Photographers from the Norton Museum of Art," an exhibition of photographs selected from the West Palm Beach, Fla., museum's permanent collection, provides a brief overview of Becher's other students. That exhibition offers more insight into Hofer's roots, Turnbow said. Both exhibitions are free and open to the public.