Käthe Kollwitz Prize for Candida Höfer

Candida Höfer (b.1944) was honoured as the winner of the Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2024. Selected by a jury consisting of Karin Sander, Hito Steyerl and Siegfried Zielinski, Höfer will receive €12,000 alongside an exhibition dedicated to her recent works, which will be displayed at the Academy of Arts in Berlin.

The showcase comprises large-format photographs from the series Weimar (2004–2006) and Berlin (2020–2022). Among the displayed images are her architectural portraits of Berlin’s Komische Oper opera house with its 1882 neo-baroque interior and of the Neue Nationalgalerie (originally built between 1965 and 1968), which is a landmark of modernism in Berlin. 

With this award, the Academy of Arts honours one of Germany’s most world-renowned photographers. Candida Höfer’s œuvre, which has grown steadily for five decades, is considered part of the contemporary photographic avant-garde.

Her large-format works depict public and semi-public spaces such as libraries, archives, museums and opera houses – places of human interaction, communication, memory and education, as well as respite and recreation. The artist herself describes her works not as architectural photographs, but as portraits of spaces. She is interested in the interplay between architecture and psychology – the ways in which people are impelled, guided or held back by these man-made environments.