COLOGNE.- With the exhibition House Hunting / Nudes of photographs by the US-American artist Todd Hido the Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery presents the first solo show of the artist in Western Europe. The exhibited photographs are a selected body of works out of his monographs "House Hunting" and "Between the Two".

Todd Hido is a San Francisco Bay-Area based photo artist. Since 2001, when he published his first monograph, entitled "House Hunting" he became a rising star of the American art scene. Meanwhile his work is known worldwide and his works are held in many permanent collections at the largest and topmost art institutions such as Guggenheim Museum, George Eastman House, Whitney Museum, Art Institute of Chicago.

Todd Hido is most recognised for his night photographs depicting deserted suburbs and roadsides. He draws much of his inspiration from the past and seems to recall random snapshots from his childhood and the atmosphere of the American suburbs where he grew up. In the series "House Hunting" Hido has photographed the insides of empty, tractstyle homes and the outsides of similar houses whose glowing window-panes signal their habitation. Seldom has suburbia looked spookier and more forlorn.

The portraits of women posing in desolate rooms give off the impression of rootlessness, isolation, desertion, loss and of inevitable end. We do not learn the names of the women or venues - the images could have been taken anywhere in the world and at any point in time.