Fantasmi e realtà


Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa presents in “Fantasmi e Realtà” the evocative work of one of the most interesting contemporary German photographers: Axel Hütte.


Fantasmi e realtà

Produced on the occasion of the 14th Architecture Biennale, the exhibition “Fantasmi e realtà”staged in the spaces of the Gallery in St. Mark's Square includes a major set of new works which Axel Hütte produced here in Venice, paying homage to the austere beauty of the noble palazzos of the lagoon city.
“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. 

Fantasmi e realtà
Top: Axel Hütte, Santa Maria dei Frari, Italy, 2012 (Basilicata di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venezia), printed on glass, 155 x 185 cm. For the place photographed: Courtesy Ufficio Beni Culturali del Patriarcato di Venezia. Above: Axel Hütte, Ca' Rezzonico 1, Italy, 2012 (Farmacia “Ai Do San Marchi”, Ca' Rezzonico, Museo del Settecento veneziano, Venezia), printed on glass, 58 x 69 cm. For the place photographed Courtesy Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia

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. 
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.



Fantasmi e realtà
Axel Hütte, Dogana, Italy, 2013 (Punta della Dogana, Venezia), Diasec, 205 x 155 cm
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 Palazzo Loredan, create an atmosphere in which its coupling with the darkness becomes a primary element.



from June 5 until October 5, 2014
Axel Hütte.
Fantasmi e realtà

curated by Filippo Maggia
Galleria di Piazza San Marco 71/c, Venezia
promoted by Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa
catalogue curated by Filippo Maggia Skira, 2014
under the patronage of Goethe Institut
with the contribution of Associazione Culturale Italo-Tedesca di Venezia (ACIT)

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