In this book an interplay unfolds between Candida Höfer's 2023 photographs of the Semper Oper
and selected pictures from Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden offering both deep insights into
Höfer's artistic practice and a reflection on the artistic representation of space. At once
artist's book and exhibition catalogue this publication is both an exploration of Candida
Höfer's artistic practice and the contexts in which this practice takes place. In 2023 Höfer
photographs in Dresden's Semperoper: spaces of rehearsal storage performance strolling and
working in the opera house become a lens that reflects the view of the context of Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen in the Kupferstich-Kabinett as a place of research collecting archiving
exhibiting and working. The focus is on the period from the mid-16th century to the invention
of photography in 1839 and includes woodcuts engravings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer Daniel
Hopfer and Giovanni Battista Piranesi among others. Text: Jane Boddy Doreen Mende.
