Teasing tourist trap

Candida Höfer's photographs of Dublin interiors have potential but are essentially 'tourist brochure photos' writes Billy Leahy

For an extraordinary artist, there is something overwhelmingly ordinary about Candida Höfer's Dublin series. The vacant rooms and spaces portrayed in the German artist's photographs are normally inviting arenas of tranquillity that still manage to contain an unsettling and foreboding air. This balance, which is more forcefully replicated in the interplay between presence and absence in the images, is one of Höfer's fundamental areas of success and a key element in the charm and intrigue her work so gracefully possesses.

But throughout the 11 photographs on display at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, this unique feature is conspicuously absent. It is a harsh criticism for sure – and maybe the level of expectation, of anticipation, accentuates the shortcomings of the IMMA exhibition – but Höfer's exhibition is nothing short of an excruciating disappointment. For an artist who has produced such a consistently impressive oeuvre for 30 years, it is only right that more should be expected.

Initially, it is difficult to understand what is so wrong with Höfer's Dublin. For a while it seems that it could be a familiarity issue – the rooms in the photographs are public places, places we might even have been. Höfer's photographs of Trinity College Library, one imagines, would be fascinating for somebody unfamiliar with the space. But for an Irish audience it will be hard for the images to shake off the shackles of "tourist brochure photo" no matter how perfect the symmetry and how eye-catching the repetition.

Höfer is known for her anonymous locales, so on a personal level this familiarity was certainly not a positive point. But still, the functionality of the rooms significantly overshadowed any personal connection, so this negative aspect does not impact too much on, or significantly undermine, the work. The real reason the show is so disappointing, one feels, is because Höfer's Dublin – as it is presented – above all else fails to live up to her own standard and the reputation of the Becher-tutored artist-photographers, such as Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky and Thomas Ruff.

The deserted interiors presented in the large-scale works are typically Höfer – all the rooms are either public or semi-public places, while, as one would expect, the composition is flawless and the colour consistently fascinating. There is no big risk or significant change in aesthetic here. But the major gamble, and the one that ultimately seems to have failed, comes with the whole idea of holding this exhibition in the first place and how the show, and even series, came about is a tale of opportunism rather than artistic planning.

Höfer was in Dublin to continue work on her library series of photographs, planning expeditions to such buildings as the National Library, Marsh's Library and the Old Library in Trinity College. Then, whilst on a trip to IMMA, she was seduced by the interiors of the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham and decided to expand the work she was doing in Dublin. Predictably, the idea of mounting a show based solely on Höfer's Dublin photographs arose and was duly accepted.

What results is a patchy exhibition that works in fits and starts, but comes up short as a whole. It is difficult not to wonder how much more interesting a show comprising just Höfer's library series – including the Dublin photographs – would be, or even a coherent series of her hotel function rooms, which contain massive potential for their own show. It is a shame Höfer's Dublin works in bursts and not as a continuous exhibition.

What are lost as a result are the delicate balances in Höfer's works; and that these have been replaced only by a sense of disappointment at a missed opportunity makes it even more frustrating.