AXEL HÜTTE was born in 1951 in Essen. With new works from the series CHRONOSTASIS he follows on from his solo exhibition in our gallery in the summer of 2019. From 2017 to 2019 he visited ancient Greek and Roman excavation sites several times in the Turkish sector of Asia Minor in order to capture them in photographs. AXEL HÜTTE does not illustrate the monuments in the sense of an archaeological documentation but focuses the observer’s field of view by choosing a section of the building (Ephesos, Hadrianic Baths, Hierapolis-3). In Sagalossos-5 and Sagalossos-6 we can see a nymphaeum, an ancient system of springs. The aedicula (1), that forms the centre of the picture Sagalassos-5 is transposed in Sagalossos-6 to the left half of the picture, the spring stands there in the centre. By minimally varying the picture section AXEL HÜTTE irritates the perception of the recipients and thus stimulates their imagination.
Ever since the beginning of AXEL HÜTTE’s preoccupation with photography at the Düsseldorf School of Photography, area and symmetry have dominated his works (Sagalassos-5, Sagalassos-6, Hierapolis-3). The space is questioned about its inner relationships, the proportions; the camera is oriented towards optical points of emphasis. A special technique, similar to the historic daguerreotype method, imbues the works with an additional radiance: the motif is printed not on paper but on glass behind which is a polished stainless-steel plate. The translucid sections of the photograph open up the gaze to the silver sheen of the high-grade metal. The large-scale format emphasizes the tableau character, similar to painting.
All the works in our exhibition CHRONOSTASIS are impressive because of their changed emphasis in colour: by means of inversion the artist varies the colour values of the works (Aezani-2, Ephesos-3, Hadrianic Baths). For instance, the bindings of the bird ornaments of the terraced houses in Ephesos from the second century AD (Ephesos Terraced Houses-3) are in reality red but in AXEL HÜTTE’s work green; the wall bearing the bird ornaments is white whereas in AXEL HÜTTE’s depiction it appears to be dark. In Myra-1, the entrances to the rock graves (in reality black) appear through the inversion to be haptically white, emerging from the rock walls, and give the work an abstract character.
In preparation for the exhibition AXEL HÜTTE comments, “In my photographs I would like to document the historic aspect but beyond this also capture the fascination and the atmosphere of the experience. Capturing the mysteriousness of these former towns in photography aims to stimulate the observer’s imagination and also to encourage them to visit these places and understand the variety of different civilisations.”
Salzburg, February 2023
Katja Mittendorfer
(1) Architectural structural element with columns bearing a roof, a gable or beams.
WORKS
INSTALLATION