Axel Hütte, Raucheck, Austria, 2011

Axel Hütte – Fantasmi e realtà

The Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa and the Fondazione Fotografia Modena present Fantasmi e Realtà, featuring the evocative work of one of the most interesting contemporary German photographers: Axel Hütte. Produced on the occasion of the 14th Architecture Biennale, the exhibition staged in the spaces of the Gallery in St. Mark’s Square includes a major set of new works which the artist produced here in Venice, paying homage to the austere beauty of the noble palazzos of the lagoon city.

Axel Hütte, Underworld 3, Usa, 2008

“In my architectural photos, the enigmatic nature of space is often coupled with the sensation of slowed time,” states Hütte, who alternates night and day, interior and exterior, black & white and colour images in his research. The gallery in Piazza San Marco will display the results of a project begun in 2012, thanks to a residency project in which Hütte participated, staying in the BLM lodgings, which allowed the artist to shoot a series of images in the palazzos and churches of Venice.

Axel Hütte, Rio Negro, Brasil, 1998

Light is the protagonist of the exhibition, capable of guiding the beholder through the constant alternation between the real and the imaginary,inviting him/her to adopt a conscious and not passive approach, yet one capable wandering freely through the fantasies of the imagination. In the shots of mountain peaks hidden by dark clouds hinting at the eminent arrival of a storm, fog and mists hinder theview, transforming reality into a ghost of itself. The point of view is mysterious: all scale references are removed, the figures often shrouded in clouds like birds in flight; at other times it is almost impossible to trace where the image has been taken.

Axel Hütte, Totenkopf, Austria, 2011

In the Venetian series, the shots of the palazzos are printed onto glass before being mounted onto a backing mirror which enhances the image with new, disarming and enigmatic reflections. The golden light of the church of Santa Maria dei Frari, just like the lampshade in PalazzoLoredan, create an atmosphere in which its coupling with the darkness becomes a primary element.

Axel Hütte, Fanano, Italy, 2013

Fantasmi e Realtà is part of the programme that the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa is dedicating to the city of Venice, to its cultural phenomena and, most of all, to the artists who have shown themselves to be most able to present it, interpreting its aesthetic evocations in a personal manner – as was the case with the illustrations of Lorenzo Mattotti – or who present its very particular social value, as in the case of the Migropolis exhibition, and the special investigations carried out into the industrial fabric of the territory by Marjetica Potrč, as well as that on the theme of water by Lucy&Jorge Orta.

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