Axel Hutte North/South /anglais/allemand: Catalogue Oslo - Hardcover

The North has always held special fascination to artists: stark, inhospitable landscapes; tundras, moors and glaciers; rocks and ice; silence and solitude. From Caspar David Friedrich’s Wreck of Hope to contemporary photography, northern landscapes have served as landscapes of mind and soul rather than athletic outdoor challenges and as places of desire for people disenchanted with modern civilization.A covert romantic, Axel Hütte shunned neither cold nor wind heading north for the landscapes of Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, and Norway.Hütte juxtaposes the glaciers’ blue gleam, the never-ending ice-bound plains and the magically white horizons of the north with the lush green opulence of southern forests and sub-tropical jungles, presenting landscape contrasts in a manner only photography can achieve.

Axel Hütte, born in Essen in 1951, studied with Bernd Becher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. He first caught attention in the art market with large-size color photographs of European cities and unusual “natures.” Since 1979 he has exhibited in galleries and museums across Europe.Hanne Holm-Johnsen is curator at the Preus Fotomuseum in Horten, Norway.