Axel Hütte was born in Essen in 1951. Having studied under Bernd Becher at the Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie from 1973-81, Hütte is one of the leading proponents of The Düsseldorf School of Photography, a movement which contemporizes the tradition of documentary photography. He is currently based in Düsseldorf and Berlin. Central to Hütte’s practice is the concept of photographic ‘objectivity’, where an image’s impartial technological production is its primary ‘value’ or ‘truth’. In his city and landscapes, Hütte both enhances and complicates this overtly clinical approach to image-making by incorporating devices

more commonly associated with abstract painting, such as mathematically formulated compositions, heightened consciousness of the picture plane, and ‘all overness’ (where every part of the image is considered of equal importance). Breathtakingly beautiful yet emotionally detached, his works exemplify ideas of the contemporary sublime. Hütte’s museum exhibitions include Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, MAGASIN Grenoble, Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, ZKM, and Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires.