CANDIDA HÖFER LIBRARIES

# Suprano's Bookshelf

A collection of works by German photographer Candida Höfer. This book has been reprinted many times since its first edition in 2005. There is perhaps no other photographer who can capture the "library," a cathedral of knowledge, so beautifully while maintaining a distance from people. Her photographs are strict and understated, and because she does not add any staging to the locations, visitors and users do not disturb the atmosphere. The seemingly empty spaces take on a presence through a delicate sense of color, and the spreading silence transcends the strength of the furnishings and architecture, giving the material an abstract quality as if giving it a voice.

This beautifully finished book contains images of libraries from around the world, taken since the 1980s, including the British Library in London, the Library of the Monastery of El Escorial in Spain, the Frances Mulhall Achilles Library and the Pierpont Morgan Library in the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) in Paris, the library in the Villa Medici in Rome, and the Hamburg University Library in Germany.

In addition, the book includes text by the writer and critic Umberto Eco, who illuminates the role of libraries in all aspects of life and introduces the works with witty observations. The absence of people is also a trademark of the author, but the serenity that this collection of works exudes is particularly rare and pleasant in contemporary photography.