The Cologne-based photographer Candida Höfer will be awarded the Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2024. The Academy of Arts honors one of the world's most recognized German photographers with the award. Candida Höfer's oeuvre, which has grown over five decades, is part of the contemporary photographic avant-garde. Her large-format photographs show public and semi-public spaces in striking historical libraries, museums and opera houses. The motifs show places of encounter, communication, memory and knowledge, but also relaxation and recreation. The artist herself describes her works not as architectural photographs, but as portraits of spaces.
The jury, consisting of Academy members Karin Sander, Hito Steyerl and Siegfried Zielinski, were convinced by Candida Höfer's many years of service to photography and her ability to use her images to draw the viewer's gaze appreciatively to the cultural spaces that surround us. “Candida Höfer gives the rooms a great, almost spiritual quality through her precision of image detail and detailed information, which is reinforced by the presence of the absent people,” says Karin Sander, jury member and director of the Fine Arts Section of the Academy of Arts.
The prize will be awarded on September 13, 2024 as part of Berlin Art Week in the Academy of Arts at Pariser Platz. On the occasion of the award ceremony, the Academy of Arts is showing an exhibition of works by Candida Höfer.