Candida Höfer’s un-peopled interiors describe a selection of formal, public and cultural spaces, including palaces, libraries and museums, in cities such as Paris, Venice, Prague and New York. This photograph of the Great Hall at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, now home to IMMA, was made by the artist while visiting Dublin in 2004 in preparation for her first solo exhibition in Ireland which took place at IMMA in 2006. During this time Höfer also photographed the National Library of Ireland, Marsh’s Library and the Long Room in the Old Library of Trinity College.
The types of architectural space to which Höfer is repeatedly drawn are public or semi-public places that have been constructed for specific purposes. Traces of human activity are evident, but people are rarely physically present. Making no alterations to the space and using only the available lighting, these works are endeavours at capturing qualities inherent in the space – tranquillity, colour, light, atmosphere and the ambiguous relationship between space and absence.