Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

Banco de España Madrid IV 2000

Image caption
CANDIDA HöFER

Banco de España Madrid IV 2000

  • 2000
  • Chromogenic print on paper
  • 120 x 120 cm
  • Edition 2/6
  • Cat. F_30
  • Acquired in 2001
By:
Carlos Martín

Candida Höfer’s photography has been defined as the portrait of an ‘absent architecture’, as she often returns to public or semi-public spaces with no human presence. However, the absence of people does not mean that there is no mark or imprint of the people who have passed through those spaces. On observing these images, It is as if people are expected to arrive and undertake and their everyday functions in the context of the institutional apparatus that they represent. The series of photographs taken in the Banco de España in 2000 reveals that same interest, with the added fact that it is an institution seen as a place that is difficult to access, even though it is public, given the security requirements inherent in its function. Höfer chose three groups of spaces according to their accessibility: two which are public (the main staircase and the library), two with limited access (the old historical archive and the entrance to the lifts to the Gold Chamber) and one whose use has varied over time (the Lobby at Plaza Cibeles, the main public entrance to the building before the extension opened in 1936).

A specific case of a space whose use has changed with the passing of the years is the large room that visitors encounter on entering the building at the corner of Calle de Alcalá and Paseo del Prado. Höfer shot this space while it was being used temporarily as a warehouse or holding place for the paintings of the Banco de España Collection. Masterpieces from the historical collection, such as San Carlos Borromeo Giving Communion to the Plague-Stricken by Mariano Salvador Maella, Angel with the Instruments of the Flagellation of Christ by Juan de Valdés Leal and one of Francisco de Goya’s Caprices can be seen there, along with contemporary works such as pieces by Juan Giralt and Pablo Palazuelo. The effect obtained is a sort of challenge by the works, an imitation of the presence of human beings in their specificity and diversity, to the serial forcefulness of the huge pillars and pilasters supporting the first floor.

Carlos Martín

 
By:
Roberto Díaz
Candida Höfer
Eberswalde 1944

Candida Höfer studied at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf from 1973 to 1976 and majored in Films with Ole John; from 1976 to 1982 she studied Photography with Bernd and Hilla Becher. The influence of the latter was decisive in Candida Höfer’s shift from a more social style of photography in the 1970s to a style characterised by the starkness, simplicity and objectivity of spaces of public utility and representation, usually in the form of strict frontal takes with balanced compositions, high definition and meticulous images. Höfer photographs architectural spaces inside buildings with a great burden of history, public functions and cultural value such as libraries, archives, monuments, museums, galleries, churches, banks, etc. when they are empty, showing places and times that are usually inaccessible to the public. That turns architecture into a tangible print of the immensity of the memory that they contain. She is consistent in her work and faithful to her essence, which has made her of the one of the leading representatives of the Düsseldorf School.

In 1975 she began to exhibit at solo shows and her work has been showcased at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg, Germany, 1993); the Kunstverein Wolfsburg (Wolfsburg, Germany, 1998); the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, United States, 2000); the Louvre (Paris, 2007); the Belem Cultural Centre (Lisbon, 2006); the Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (Karlsruhe, Germany, 2008); Vigo Contemporary Art Museum (2010); the Andalusian Contemporary Art Centre (Seville, 2010); the Museum fur Neue Kunst (Friberg, Germany, 2011, 2012); and the Museum Kunstpalast (Düsseldorf, Germany, 2013-2014). She has also taken part in events such as Documenta 11 (Kassel, Germany, 2002), represented Germany together with Martin Kippenberger at the Venice Bienniale (2003) and was part of a group exhibition at the National Gallery of Art Washington D. C. (2016).

Roberto Díaz

 
«Architectures of Silence», Museo Municipal de Málaga (Malaga, 2001). «From Goya to our times. Perspectives of the Banco de España Collection», Musée Mohammed VI d'Art Moderne et Contemporain (Rabat, 2017-2018).
Yolanda Romero & Isabel Tejeda De Goya a nuestros días. Miradas a la Colección Banco de España, Madrid & Rabat, AECID y FMN, 2017. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 2.