Candida Höfer: Divine-Human Image, a Language of Silence text by Sumi Kang PDF

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Candida Höfer: Divine-Human Image, a Language of Silence Dr. KANG Sumi “Projects”—for me—means above all being given possibilities and opportunities for access; and then it means access for a limited time, with a beginning and—at least temporarily—an end, but without any external expectations as to...

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Candida Höfer: Divine-Human Image, a Language of Silence

Dr. KANG Sumi

“Projects”—for me—means above all being given possibilities and opportunities for access; and then it means access for a limited time, with a beginning and—at least temporarily—an end, but without any external expectations as to what comes in between or may come out at the end. 1

The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. (...) I must ask you to join me in the disorder of crates that have been wrenched open, the air saturated with wood dust, the floor covered with torn paper, to join me among piles of volumes that are seeing daylight again after two years of darkness...2

Light Born in Eberswalde, Germany in 1944, Candida Höfer has had a profound influence on the field of contemporary art photography. What makes her contribution so notable is that she does not adopt artificial light in her photography. On this subject she has said, “I always work with the existing light of the space, just tripods and my cameras...” 3 Let us start with this fact. That Höfer does not work with artificial lighting means that she does not employ lighting devices such as an electronic flash and a strobe. It also means that she works under the conditions that are present at the time of her shoot—whether that means natural light or interior lighting conditions—with very little adjustment or manipulation. The art of Höfer has continued to revolve around the medium of photography for the past five decades, from her early projects including Liverpool (1968) and Türken in Deutschland (1972-79) to her more

1 A dialogue between Höfer and Burkert. Herbert Burkert & Candida Höfer (2009), “Über Projekte. Ein kurzes Gespräch”, Candida Höfer Projects: Done, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, p. 173. 2 Walter Benjamin (2005), “Unpacking My Library: A Talk on Collecting”, Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, vol 2, part 2 (Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland & Gary Smith (eds.), Rodney Livingston et al. (trans.)), The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, p. 486. 3 Herbert Burkert & Candida Höfer (2009), p. 177.

recent works such as Elbphilharmonie Hamburg (2016). The most representative works of Höfer’s oeuvre are her ongoing series of large-format photographs that depict architectural interiors of buildings that possess historical authority and high cultural value. At this point, it is worth drawing attention to the fact that the artist does not utilize artificial lighting. This can be seen in both her early works documenting Turkish immigrants in Germany which attempted to document “interactions with minority subjects,”4 to her large-scale depictions of palaces, libraries, theaters, odeums, opera houses, and museums throughout the world. Within these two very different contexts the reason that Höfer does not resort to artificial lighting is simple, she “[prefers] an atmosphere bathed in daylight.”5 Let us delve more deeply into this aspect of Höfer’s work. As has been discussed, the artist chooses to impose certain physical constraints on her practice by insisting on the use of only natural lighting present at the site. In this way Höfer relinquishes some of her artistic control and the ability to manipulate the aesthetical outcome through technological means. Most artists wish to exert complete control over the surrounding environment in order to obtain the perfect photographic results. This is especially true for artists of Höfer’s status and authority. Despite her reputation and the pressures to maintain a level of perfection Höfer has instead chosen to voluntarily conform to the lighting conditions that are given. This choice reflects a profound aspect of of her art-making philosophy with its emphasis on capturing the real and unplanned. It also highlights the perimeters of her production as based not on absolute freedom, but on limits and subtle variability. With production possible only during daylight hours, Höfer accepts the impossibility of capturing subjects and places with poor lighting as well as working hours and conditions that are subject to unforeseen changes. In this way the artist defers her status as creator, minimizing the subjective interpretation and psychological projection that can be exerted on her subjects. The conditions described above insure one of the most notable aspects of Höfer’s work, its Sachlichkeit or “matter-of-factness.” This unique attribute allows ordinary audiences as well as aesthetes, critics, and theorists to enter into the work, enjoying an aesthetics of objectivity and a neutral perspective. Let us now widen our analysis to include not only the photograph’s formal attributes but also a discussion of their conceptual terms,

4 Amy A. DaPonte, “Candida Höfer’s Türken in Deutschland as ‘Counter-publicity’”, Art Journal Open, 2017 (January), http://artjournal.collegeart.org/?p=7992 5 Anne Ganteführer-Trier, “Room with a view”, Goethe Institut, 2012 (December), https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/bku/20373446.html

measuring her art’s formative properties against a critical set of considerations in order to understand them from an epistemological perspective. As we have begun to discuss, Höfer utilizes the limits of natural lighting conditions instead of inflicting artificial light upon the subject, an approach that can be linked philosophically to her upholding the objectivity of the world or, in a broader sense, affirming the Divine law. In this way Höfer’s work confronts deep seated ontological themes, as can be seen in the word licht or light. The symbol and physics of light are linked conceptually to a Western tradition, reflecting a duality that can offer a productive basis for exploring her photography. First, in the history of ideas light as lumen embodies the laws of physics governed by geometry and implying illumination of the human intellect. On the other hand, light as lux pertains to the actual optical experience of humans.6 In other words, light has been developed and divided into two different categories: non-visible light as insightful reflection via the mind (rationalism or mysticism) versus visible light as embodied by ocular observation (empiricism). When taking this into account in investigating the significance of the “given/present light” in Höfer’s photography, one can construe that such an attitude or method reflects the artist’s will to discover “light as lumen,” that is, her interest in framing the enlightenment of the subject by using the camera’s innate mechanisms based on perspectival geometry and optical science. What characterizes Höfer’s unique work is her method of foregrounding the artist-subject without violating the objective forces that frame them. Here arises a paradox: In her work Höfer seeks non-visible, a priori images, through processes that are visible, empirical, and based on the mechanics of photography. When such a pursuit is successful, the image is visible to the eyes and yet transcends the merely ocular. It is a representation of reality but, simultaneously triggers a deeper cognitive analysis of the world.

Clear and distinct imagery

Sight is the predominant sense with which most humans perceive their existence. That is, vision and the visibility of the world. Yet what we see with our eyes may be unreal, the result of deceptive effects or an optical illusion. Traditionally, in philosophy, truth has been defined against this falsehood; truth therefore is seen as “invisible,” lying somewhere beyond the phenomenal. In this context true nature does not reveal itself through imagery at all. In other Martin Jay (1994), Downcast Eyes, The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought, University of California, p. 29.

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words, phenomena, images, the visible, things we can sense, and so on, are governed by variability, incompleteness, uncertainty, and temporality, and thus are far from truth or substance. Descartes, the father of modern Western philosophy, especially of human reason, responded to this by giving priority to cognition rather than the senses, declaring “Cogito ergo sum,” I think therefore I am. This is a more concise articulation of the analytic ontology, argued since Plato, that asserts that, while human senses are subject to mistake and error, human cognition is oriented toward a “clear and distinct” state, and accordingly “beings who think and doubt” can be objectively trusted. Yet is it not our perceptual experiences that allow our minds to have and distinguish thoughts? Moreover, can human cognition free itself from nature’s pressure (Zwang) or the limits of our material experience? Indeed, human consciousness is, in face, dependent on a person’s embracement of the variability and incompleteness of his/her perception and acknowledgment of the power of the external condition. For instance what Höfer calls “time pressure” is coupled with the fact that Höfer insists on almost no artificial alteration of her subject including lighting upon the subject (space, place, architecture, and the beings and context. Höfer’s subjects in her major projects consist of public spaces such as libraries, museums, and memorial halls, and thus she is limited to the hours of daylight before or after those organizations’ regular operating hours. Governed by the external perimeters and Höfer’s voluntary acceptance of these pressures, the images transcend overly determined logic and mechanical rationality, resulting in clearer and more distinctive images. Her acceptance of the limitations of her chosen subjects leads to the final photograph that contains even states in which what is perceived and experienced is condensed in the subject. Here are Höfer’s words as support to my interpretation. “As a result of this time pressure, what evolves over time is a kind of settling into the first look when photographing, and a trust in the very first look at a space, which sometimes seems to me like a mutual trust between the space and me...”7 BNF Paris ⅩⅩⅡ (1998), Naturmuseum Rotterdam Ⅳ (1999), Palacio Real Madrid (2000), New School New York Ⅱ (2001), Theotro Comunale di Bologna Ⅱ (2006),

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Herbert Burkert & Candida Höfer (2009), p. 176.

Kunstakademie Düsseldorf Ⅲ (2011), Elbphilharmonie Hamburg Herzog & de Meuron Hamburg Ⅱ (2016). Among Höfer’s numerous works, I have listed a few at random. Despite the arbitrariness of my choices, however, all of the selected photographs illustrate a fundamental truth about the artist and the way in which time functions in her practice. When she executed her projects in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, in the Naturmuseum Rotterdam, in the Palacio Real Madrid, in the New School New York, in the Theotro Comunale di Bologna, in the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and in the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg Herzog, time constraints were not a negative restriction but, highlighted the experiential and phenomenal peculiarities pregnant in each space. Indeed, the limitations functioned to generate synergy between the artist and her subject. What our eyes register immediately from her photographs is the monumental spectacle of the architectural interiors in which Western modern symbolic mechanisms such as verticality, horizontality, the grid, and linear perspective are materialized and physically embodied. Yet inside of these spaces there is a further record of how the historical concreteness of pervasive human experience has accumulated within the building. Simultaneously, revealed in this context is the dynamic between the subject and Höfer, a connection that is not interrupted by artificial adjustments or artistic intervention. Consequently, we as viewers are allowed to have a tactile experience of the overwhelming spectacle embedded in her photographs and in the pictured space. For example, in her image of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, we feel as if we are observing it through a microscope, as if we are present. According to Walter Benjamin, architecture is the accumulation of human perception and a crystallized embodiment of tactile apperception. In “Unpacking My Library: A Talk on Collecting,” Benjamin describes his library as a space replete with disorderliness and yet with exuberant poetic ambiance. The sentences quoted at the beginning of this essay are from the aforementioned essay. As we read those sentences, it is not just our eyes that register meaning. but it is as if we are sitting in the middle of the room with Benjamin—surrounded by his library of over 2,000 books stacked one on top of the other.—Our entire body reads the smell of the old books and wooden boxes, the flow of dust floating in the light coming through the windows and the quiet rustle of paper. Benjamin’s library becomes an interior space in which intellectual imagination and human experiences intermingle, and his writing becomes a medium of aesthetic communication between the writer and the reader. For me, the monumental library BNF in Paris captured by Höfer evokes this Benjaminian library. In this space too the eyes witness the sharp contrasts between the disorderly and orderly

construction and arrangement of geometric lines and between the intimate sensibility and refined spectacle. What both libraries represent is a space in which the boundaries of time and medium are blurred, and where multidimensional thinking and perception is stimulated— where lux is enclosed by lumen. Self-control and “done” Evenly distributed luminosity throughout the entire picture plane—despite their being two meters high and wide—as well as her vertigo-inducing symmetry and use of proportional composition, where all lines converge precisely to a single vanishing point. These balanced attributes highlight the aesthetic pinnacle of Höfer’s series of interior architectural photography, which is one of her major work series. It is to say that Höfer’s photographs are the almost perfect, two-dimensional simultaneous combinations of the macroscopic structure and microscopic details of three-dimensional architectures. This work and this emphasis on mathematical perspective can be seen in many of her subjects, whether it is a library in Weimar, Germany, established in the eighteenth century, a theater in Hanover built in the 1990s, or the Elbphiharmonie, completed in 2017. All her images of these distinctive buildings display characteristics that evoke norms of classical beauty: lit from the front, elegant symmetry, well-defined linear composition, well-balanced proportion. One of the mainstays of Höfer’s artistic achievement lies in her ability to work with the temporal and spatial distinction of a great variety of architectural buildings and still capture something that is clearly a signature mood and remains distinctly her own. A second characteristic is how aspects of Western classical beauty, initially developed in both architecture and painting, have been skillfully merged by Höfer within the medium of photography. Thirdly, as analyzed above, Höfer is able to meticulously frame her shots and allow us to enjoy images defined by balance and harmony, despite her commitment to working within the given conditions and pressures of a specific site. What makes this possible? My answer to this question is Höfer’s perfectionism. Or, more accurately, her skill and self-control in pursuit of perfection without the interruption of hubris. In short, the photographer, who is known as one of the first-generation artists of the Becher School at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, is able to deliver a perfect composition by controlling her own subjectivity rather than by controlling

the subject.8 Indeed, it is this skillful balance that thwarts the viewer’s effort to detect in Höfer’s photographs a particular psychological agenda or to discover some hermetic significance of a specific place. Höfer’s perfectionism is, in fact, a perfectionism that accommodates the “incomplete” and accepts the “endless.” It parallels the assertion that one subset of a dichotomy is defined by the other as in male/female, day/night, and non-lack/lack. In light of this reading, let us examine one of Höfer’s publications, Candida Höfer Projects: Done. Published in 2009 in the form of a catalog, this book shows the fourteen projects that the artist carried out from 1968 to 2008, and interestingly enough, the book itself constituted her fifteenth project. In other words, the projects “done” by Höfer over four decades culminate in the publication of a book and at the same time form a new project. This suggests why the artist chose the word “done” and not “finished” or “completed” for the title. Furthermore, this speculation facilitates a critical viewpoint of Höfer’s philosophy regarding the core of photography. In brief, for the artist, photography is about neither the carrying through of a task nor the showing off of the test results, but about what is carried out on the axis of “performativity.” For Höfer, there are projects “done” by her for the past decades, and those that “are being done”, preparation for exhibitions that serve as “an encounter with the past,”9 and projects that will be done—but overlap—with previous projects. According to Höfer:

At most, the only project that is completely finished, if I can use that word, is the Liverpool series. Liverpool was a place at a time that no longer can be repeated and that no longer endures in that form. 10 In my understanding, Höfer’s argument that her own projects are merely “done,” and not “finished” or “completed” is based on her concern with perfection. As I see it, such an aesthetic attitude, namely, the ascetic stance towards a perfect aesthetic achievement, has led Höfer’s photographs to a realm of two-dimensionality wherein they can be constantly adjusted and perfectly coordinated in pursuit of balance and coordinated perfectly. But if this “Once I have decided, then I do become systematic; that’s when organization begins,” Herbert Burkert & Candida Höfer (2009), p. 177. 9 Herbert Burkert & Candida Höfer (2009), p. 173. 10 Ibid., p. 175. Also, refer to Michael Oppitz, “Images of Liverpool,” Herbert Burkert & Candida Höfer (2009), pp. 195-201. 8

is the case, why did Höfer say that the Liverpool series was “completely finished”? First, a clue can be found in her words, “a place at a time.” If we respect this caveat, Liverpool is “completely finished” because the city of Liverpool exists only in the space-time that was photographed by Höfer in 1968. And the Liverpool series remains behind merely as a verification of the “absence of presence” as Roland Barthes defined photography. Does this explanation satisfactorily explain Höfer’s observation that the Liverpool series is the only project that is completely finished? It does not, because every photograph is an alibi for the absence of presence—for “what was present there at a time” is “not present here and now.” I am tempted to link the reason that Höfer regards Liverpool as a project that is completely finished with the following fact: the series represents her rupture with a previous stage in her development. In this reading, the series marks her serious engagement with photography as a student of Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, defined by her interest in photographing cityscapes and retracing the activities of a poetry band named The Liverpool Scene11—and the subsequent break from that period’s specific cultural milieu. If that is the case, it could be said that Liverpool is completely finished as a photographic aesthetic that Höfer can no longer return to or repeat. It marks a watershed after which Höfer’s new and different projects began. A language of silence Many have pointed out the absence of human figures in Höfer’s works. This is true. No trace of people is found in her photographic spaces; whether they depict the vast inside of a palace, the reading room of a library, the gallery of a museum, or the stage and seating of an opera house. This has been confirmed by Höfer’s statement, “Since my series about Turks, there haven't been people in my photographs...”12 It has, however, been said that Höfer does not deliberately exclude human figures or the depiction of exteriors. Instead it appears that what is at stak...