Cologne-based photographer Candida Höfer (b.1944) has won this year’s Käthe Kollwitz Prize, Berlin’s Akademie der Künste announced. Selected by a jury consisting of Karin Sander, Hito Steyerl and Siegfried Zielinski, Höfer will receive €12,000 alongside an exhibition dedicated to her work, which will be mounted at the Berlin institution from 14 September to 24 November.
Studying under Arno Jansen and subsequently Ole John and Bernd Becher, Höfer was trained alongside the likes of Andreas Gursky and Thomas Ruff. She is known for her large-format photographs depicting architectural interiors of public buildings such as historical libraries, museums and opera houses. With a meticulous sense of detail and symmetry, these compositions are what she calls ‘portraits of spaces’.
‘With her precision of image focus and detail, Candida Höfer gives the spaces a significant, almost spiritual quality, which is reinforced by the presence of the people who are absent,’ Karin Sander, jury member and director of the Visual Arts Section of the Akademie der Künste said in a statement.
Established in 1960, the Käthe Kollwitz Prize has been co-financed by the Kreissparkasse Köln since 1992. Previous laureates of the award include Sandra Vásquez de la Horra (2023), Nan Goldin (2022), Maria Eichhorn (2021), Timm Ulrichs (2020), Hito Steyerl (2019), Adrian Piper (2018) and Katharina Sieverding (2017).
