Author Description

Published on the occasion of the major 2004 retrospective exhibition, Axel Hütte: Terra Incognita, at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. The catalogue covers key works from 1982-2003, including his portrait typologies. From the publisher: "Axel Hütte, born in Essen in 1951 and a member of Bernd Becher's master class at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, is one of the group of younger German photographers who, in the past twenty years, have established a firm presence on the international art scene. Early on, Hütte has been fascinated by landscape photography, albeit a broad theme but one in which his particular approach has spawned an almost programmatic portrayal of the confrontation between the city and the countryside. Between pure 'pieces of nature' (mist-shrouded mountain peaks, panoramic jungles and deserts, ocean horizons and night skies) and their opposite (oppressive street vistas that are quite literally dead-ends), Hütte repeatedly moves in some grey zone that is a neither/nor: industrial estates on the edge of town, company buildings in green belts, farmed land, seen through the concrete pillars of new commercial buildings..." Axel Hütte's focus is the confrontation between city and countryside, between foggy mountains, deserts, sea horizons or night skies and uneasy no-exit streets."