Thomas Schüpping (b. Andernach, 1964; lives and works in Düsseldorf), who started out as a painter but soon chose to dedicate himself entirely to photography, has created an extensive oeuvre in fine-art photography that has received virtually few public attention. Schüpping captures his motifs in radical isolation in starkly black-and-white pictures that combine a rigorous documentary ambition with a keen sense for ostensibly peripheral detail. A central genre in his work is landscape photography: in panoramas as well as close-up shots, the artist explores nature and the traces of civilization, the distinctive “je ne sais quoi” and aura of a region. He records typical elements that, though recognizable at a second glance, are of great symbolic force. Since 2000, Schüpping has made several trips to the Mojave Desert, Nevada, and Los Angeles and compiled a remarkable ensemble of photographs, a study of landscapes as well as weather-beaten vestiges of human settlement and urban environments. With an essay by Thomas Hirsch.