The Irish Times

The buildings in Candida Höfer's photographs are haunted by their occupants, though they are rarely occupied as such. Höfer photographs interior public spaces, locations such as offices, lecture theatres, libraries, archives, reception rooms, store rooms, foyers, museums, galleries, restaurants and canteens, at times when there is no-one there. Yet, although they are deserted, the rooms, with their various kinds of paraphernalia, seem poised and ready for human intervention, charged with energy of some kind. It is as though the texts in the books densely packed on library shelves are like the charge in a battery. It's reasonable to say that this idea of potential is at the heart of Höfer's work, and her subject is not so much the rooms themselves as the empty spaces framed by the rooms. While there is an obvious emphasis on organisation and logic in her views of libraries and other functional spaces, she is also drawn to oddities and incongruities, to ad hoc arrangements of things. These seeming eccentricities are always related to simple practicality, such as catering or teaching, and are also a way of articulating the potential inherent in a space. If you think this sounds a bit unlikely, too metaphysical an interpretation of what are, after all, photographs of empty rooms, you should look at Höfer's images for yourself.