Far away – on the road

Axel Hütte has visited all of the continents over the course of recent years, always in the company of his large-format analogue plate camera. Considered a master of his trade, his oeuvre encompassing landscape and architectural photographs ranges from nocturnal metropolises to remote glaciers and the Antarctic to the primeval tropical forest.

The artist is not primarily interested in documentation but rather planarity and depth, perceptual phenomena and the impressions made by his motifs that are often captured in unconventional pictorial structures. Light and weather conditions, clouds, fog, backlighting, blurs and reflections are the instruments behind the desired pictorial impression. Formal structures found in nature or the city become artistic compositions. Hütte’s working method includes long exposure photography without any digital post processing.

Axel Hütte is seen as an “artist’s artist” and as a “painter among photographers”—artistic references to Caspar David Friedrich, William Turner and Gerhard Richter as well as to abstract and monochrome painting do not seem exaggerated.

The exhibition featuring about 30 works from 1999 to 2017 by the German artist Axel Hütte takes up the entire basement level of Museum Franz Gertsch. This solo presentation in Switzerland follows the comprehensive two-part retrospective show at the Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf and the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop featuring almost 200 of Hütte’s works.

Axel Hütte was born in Essen (D) in 1951; he now lives and works in Düsseldorf and Berlin (D). He studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Bernd Becher. The artist has actively exhibited internationally since 1979 and his works are represented in numerous renowned collections. Axel Hütte is one of the important early proponents of the Düsseldorf School of Photography.

The exhibition was curated by Anna Wesle in collaboration with the artist.