Axel Hütte

Axel Hütte. Night and Day

The renowned photographic artist Axel Hütte, who – alongside Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth and Thomas Ruff – belongs to the world-famous first generation of the Düsseldorf School of Photography under Bernd and Hilla Becher, transforms the classical genre of landscape photography into abstract visual structures. His works deliberately eschew mere documentary photography, even though he travels across every continent in search of his subjects – from the dense jungles of South America to alpine glaciers and the brightly lit megacities of the world. Rather than depicting tourist attractions, Hütte searches for patterns, reflections and geometric orders in nature and urban spaces.

A key artistic device here is deliberate visual disruption: he often obscures the unobstructed view with mist, extreme darkness or architectural elements in the foreground. His night-time photographs are particularly fascinating; thanks to extremely long exposure times of up to 40 minutes, they reveal a light all of their own, almost magical in nature.

In the eyes of curator Ralph Goertz, Hütte’s approach goes far beyond traditional photography: he regards him as a visual artist who uses the methods of photography to create mental and visual spaces – rather than mere facts – through a precise interplay of light, shadow and planes of focus.

The works were not presented in the exhibition as a loose sequence of individual images, but staged as a precisely planned, immersive photographic installation through which visitors moved as if through an artificial landscape. To round off the overview of Hütte’s artistic development, the show was accompanied by a parallel exhibition dedicated to his early work in architecture.

Exhibition details:

Title: Axel Hütte. Night and Day

Venue: Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Dates: 23 September 2017 to 14 January 2018

Curator: Ralph Goertz

Scope: Around 70 large-format photographic works (ranging from classics such as ‘Furkablick’ from 1994 to Antarctic photographs that were brand new at the time)

Special feature: The first-ever presentation of his atmospheric video works (‘Attonitus’ and ‘Detroit’)

Corresponding exhibition: At the same time, the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat in Bottrop presented the exhibition ‘Axel Hütte. Early Works’

You will find more informations on the exhibition on our IKS-PHOTO website.

The exhibition “Axel Hütte. Night and Day” at the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf (2017/2018) presented large-format landscape photographs as immersive spatial installations. Online media reported enthusiastically on the exhibition, praising its meditative effect, the high art of perception and the parallels with painting. Further information on the exhibition can be found at ddorf-aktuell.de and FeuilletonFrankfurt.