Candida Hofer: Opera De Paris

Candida Höfer’s works have something timeless about them, and opera is perhaps the most timeless cultural delight. Having dedicated a photographic series to the cathedrals of knowledge that are libraries, Höfer in her most recent cycle captures opera houses, the palaces of performing arts. Höfer’s earlier pictures of public spaces—libraries, lecture halls, museums, meeting rooms—forever devoid of people, made us sense the presence of those absent. Her opera photographs take us one step beyond: empty foyers, orchestras, stages, wings, and boxes make us imagine both theprotagonists—performers and audience—and the fictitious figures, plots, and places that populate these venues during a night at the opera. In her most recent publication Candida Höfer portrays two Paris opera houses that are exemplary for their age and time: the neoclassicist Palais Garnier (1875), original Phantom of the Opera site, and the modern-style Opéra Bastille (1989).

Text by Gérard Mortier

Candida Höfer, born in Eberswalde, near Berlin, in 1944, studied with Bernd Becher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. Along with numerous international shows, she participated in documenta 11 and represented Germany at the 2003 Venice Biennial.

Gérard Mortier was born in 1943 in Ghent, Belgium, where he studied law and communications. He served as a assistant to Christopher Dohnányi and Rolf Lieberman in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Paris (1973-1980); director of the Brussels Opera Théâtre de la Monnaie (1981-1991); manager and artistic director of the Salzburg festival (1991-2001); director of the Ruhr Triennale (2002-2004); director of the Opéra de Paris since 2004.

45 color plates