Part of a suite of eighteen images taken at the Louvre, this work draws our attention to the Denon Wing of the Grande Galerie, a space who’s monumental 288-metre corridor traces its origins to the late 16th century, a vision realised under King Henry IV and completed in 1607. Höfer’s lens lingers on the interplay of light and space, transforming this historical corridor into a luminous tableau where the intricate marriage of classical proportions and sumptuous detailing emerges with crystalline clarity.

Höfer’s series interrogates its layers of history and the evolving practices of museology, capturing spaces like the Galerie d’Apollon, the Salle des Caryatides, and the iconic Mona Lisa room, as well as the Daru, Melpomène, and Michelangelo galleries. The juxtaposition of the 17th-century Galerie d’Apollon and the 19th-century salles rouges articulates the evolution of display conventions, hinting at the shifting dialogues between the artworks and their architectural contexts.

In Musée du Louvre Paris I 2005, the Grande Galerie is rendered with a striking duality. The expansive glass ceiling admits a flood of natural light that bathes the space in an almost clinical clarity, imbuing the scene with an austere coolness. Yet, this is counterbalanced by the warm hues of the paintings lining the walls – silent witnesses to centuries of human creativity and endeavour. The absence of human presence, a signature of Höfer’s work, amplifies this tension: the grandeur of the architecture confronts the viewer as both a testament to collective cultural achievement and as a meditation on the solitude of these institutional spaces.

Through her photographs, Höfer captures not just the physical grandeur of these galleries but their role as vessels of memory, markers of cultural continuity, and mirrors of societal values. The works encourage a deeper contemplation of how these spaces mediate our engagement with art, tracing the shifting relationship between the object, the institution, and the public across time. In Musée du Louvre Paris I 2005, Höfer invites us to inhabit this liminal space, where past and present coalesce in a dialogue of silence, light, and form.