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Title: Hütte's Painterly Photography: Bridging Art and Vision
Get ready to embark on a visual journey at the Arp Museum Rolandseck, as they present Axel Hütte's breathtaking "Silent Expanses." This exhilarating exhibition showcases Hütte's photography from his series created since the mid-90s, with 36 pieces that'll captivate your senses.
Taking the world by storm on 27.02.2025, Dagmar Behr guides us through the enchanting "Rheingau/Nebel I," a vast winter landscape blurring the lines between reality and dreams. The large-scale color photograph reflects Hütte's fascination with the foggy winter vistas that merge the Rhine, River island, mountain range, and sky into a single pictorial paradise. His use of analog photographic means transforms the landscape into a dreamy tableau inviting us to lose ourselves within.
Only partly visible behind this artistic masterpiece is a railway bridge, like "Rawngilly Bridge." Hütte challenges the viewer by obscuring the structure, creating a vibrant, colorful frame for the intersection of the sky and tree-tops beyond. In contrast, his icy photograph of an Icelandic glacier takes on an almost abstract appearance, yet retains a natural charm. Landscape details are intentionally tilted or mirrored, turning our reality upside down and demanding our full attention.
Deviate a bit from his photography, and you'll find Hütte's lesser-known video works, waiting to stimulate your imagination with their captivating rhythm. The interplay between abstracted visual sequences and sound arrangements by his team stirs the soul and curiosity in unexpected ways.
In more recent years, Hütte unveiled his "Flowers" series, stripping nature down to individual flower stalks found on country walks. Using technical finesse, he achieves a dramatic color reversal, making the fragile plants glow ominously on a black background in bizarre hues and shades of colorlessness. The flower still lifes of Baroque painting spring to mind, as does the manipulative ability of contemporary digital technology. Hütte intentionally challenges our attention, forcing us to delve deeper into his world of artistry.
With his painterly quality, Hütte immerses viewers in a universe of emotional resonance, slow and meditative viewing experiences, and interdisciplinary appreciation. By masterfully blending photography and painting, he ventures beyond the traditional boundaries of each art form, offering an unique and mesmerizing perspective to photography enthusiasts and art connoisseurs alike.
In the realm of Hütte's artistic offerings, another captivating dimension lies in home-and-garden decoration. His flowers series, strikingly presented on black backgrounds, would undoubtedly elevate any space, infusing it with his painterly lifestyle.
The large-scale color photographs of Hütte's landscapes, like the foggy Rheingau or the icy Icelandic glacier, would gracefully adorn walls, bridging the gap between home-and-garden and the stunning vistas of his art, inviting one to ponder and lose oneself within.
