SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024: “Concreto” at Il Perimetro dell’Arte, Bologna

2021: “Lo que pasa” at FoLa (Fototeca Latinoamericana), curated by Luz Hitters, directed by Gastón Deleau/Buenos Aires

2020: “Concrete”, curated by Luz Hitters/London

2019: “Twisted Memories” with artist Agustina Nuñez, curated by Luz Hitters/Taller Citroen/Buenos Aires

2018: “Darwin”, curated by Luz Hitters/Buenos Aires

2015: “Rupestres” at Tienda Federico Churba/Buenos Aires

2014: “Concreto” at Tienda Federico Churba/Buenos Aires

2013: The tyranny of focus/Centro Cultural Plaza Castelli/Buenos Aires

2010: The tyranny of focus/Hoyts Premium DOT/Buenos Aires

1997: Escuela Nacional de Fotografía/Buenos Aires

1997: Dirección de Cultura de Santa Fé, directed by Miguel Grattier/Santa Fé

1995: Fotogalería del Teatro Municipal Gral. San Martín, directed by Sara Facio/Buenos Aires

1995: “Portraits”/Museo de Arquitectura CAYC, directed by Jorge Glusberg/Buenos Aires

1994: “Fotografías 92-94”/Centro Cultural Andy Goldstein/Buenos Aires 

1994: “Instantáneas de N.Y.”/Tancat/Buenos Aires

1994: “Vistas de un verano en Mendoza”/Tancat/Buenos Aires

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2019: “RE: ECM”/Seoul

2015: “Expansión” with Ana Abregú, Alicia Esquivel and Graciela Saulle/Centro Cultural Plaza Castelli/Buenos Aires

2014: 103 Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales/Palais de Glace/Buenos Aires

2012: Por Up Art Event junto a María Jalil, Philippe Bemberg, Florencia Boghtlingk, Paula Zenderowicz, etc./Buenos Aires

2009: Expotrastiendas/Buenos Aires

2002: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Neuquén: “Imágenes y cultura del XX: La fotografía”/Neuquén with July Dater, Robert Mapplethorpe, Rafael Navarro, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Sebastiao Salgado, etc.

2002: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes: “Imágenes y cultura del XX: La fotografía”/Buenos Aires with July Dater, Robert Mapplethorpe, Rafael Navarro, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Sebastiao Salgado, etc.

2001: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes: “Muestra de la Primera Bienal Internacional de Arte de Buenos Aires”/Neuquén with Humberto Rivas, Adriana Lestido, Oscar Pintor, Marcos López, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Sebastiao Salgado, etc.

2000: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes: “Primera Bienal Internacional de Arte de Buenos Aires”/Buenos Aires with Humberto Rivas, Adriana Lestido, Oscar Pintor, Marcos López, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Sebastiao Salgado, etc.

2000: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes: “Colección Fotográfica MNBA, muestra de las donaciones del año 1999”/Buenos Aires

1999: Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo: “Hitos de Buenos Aires”/Buenos Aires

1997: Centro Cultural Parque de España/Rosario, Santa Fé

1997: Centro Cultural Recoleta: “El fragmento arquitectónico”, directed by Raquel Bigio/Buenos Aires

1996: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes “Fotografía argentina: La joven generación”, directed by Sara Facio & Jorge Glusberg/Buenos Aires

1996: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes: “La ciudad agredida”, directed by Gaspar Glusberg/Buenos Aires

1996: Triennale  di Arte di Milano “Los espacios públicos de Buenos Aires. 7 arquitectos, 7 artistas, 7 fotógrafos”, directed by Jorge Glusberg/Milano, Italia

1995: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes: “Los espacios públicos de Buenos Aires”/Buenos Aires

1994: Universidad de Belgrano/Buenos Aires

1993: Tercera Bienal de Arte Joven/Buenos Aires

1993: Centro Cultural Recoleta: Concurso Coca-Cola en las Artes y en las Ciencias/Buenos Aires

1992: Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires: Concurso Vasa Blindex/Buenos Aires

awards, distinctions, lectures

2022: Lectures for students at Brown University’s branch in Bologna

2019: Lecture on Photography and Music at Jazz Milano (Trienalle di Milano, Italia) with fellow colleague Roberto Masotti, celebrating ECM’s 50 years

2014: 103° Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales, Presidencia de La Nación, Argentina: Gran Premio Adquisición (most important visual arts prize in Argentina)

2011: “Ventanas al Futuro” Award for his contribution to architectural photography

2009: 12° Jornadas Universitarias de Diseño de Interiores organizadas por Dara, Facultad de Diseño y Comunicacion, Universidad de Palermo

2015: Juan was invited by professor Lorenzo Shakespear to talk about his experience on photography at the University of San Andrés

2005/2010: Juan was invited by professor Omar Tiraboschi to conduct seminars on photography at the Austral University

2003/2005: Main professor of Advertising Photography at the career of Advertising and Institutional Communication, UCA (Argentinian Catholic University)

1999: Jury at the Photography Contest “La Nación 30X30” along with Sara Facio, Jorge Glusberg, Roberto Converti, Gustavo Sosa Pinilla and Raquel Bigio

about his work

 “Juan Hitters' photographs stand out for the excellence of his technique in the vision of the fragmented landscape and for a particular approach to beings in his portraits. He is, without a doubt, a promising figure in Argentinean photography.”

Sara Facio, director of La Azotea Photo Editors, director of the Photography Department at the National Fine Arts Museum, former director of the Photo-gallery at Teatro Municipal San Martín, Buenos Aires  

 “The photographs he has taken for Wallpaper are wonderful”

James Reid, photographic editor, Wallpaper Magazine, UK

“Hello Juan, I have received the shots. The portraits are great. Thank you for doing the work”

Anna Hustler, assist. photographic editor, Wallpaper Magazine, UK

“I apologise for taking so long to reply to your letter and the magnificent photographs of Dino (Saluzzi) and the landscapes. They really are all very strong and I am convinced that you will find many of these images on our record covers in the future. I really like the intonation and the choice of light and colours. Please continue to send us your work whenever you like… Your inspired photographs of Anja (Lechner) and Dino are very special indeed. We have chosen an excellent image from this series for the cover of Responsorium. I really like the way you work the light in your photography. There will be more covers with your motifs soon on ECM.”  

Manfred Eicher, Director, ECM  Records, Munich, Grammy Award winner

“Hitters has a magic in his way of seeing, feeling and expressing himself that moves us. In his portraits we can become aware of the look of each one of his characters, and in the study of light and form, he shows a skill in his treatment that is rarely seen”

Luis Boccuti, director, Escuela Nacional de Fotografía, Buenos Aires

 “I have received your magnificent photos...I appreciate the quality of your photographic works...All your work, or most of it, concerns what is common between a wall and a face. This is your main gaze. It is on this path, paradoxical but profound, that you must advance”

Jean-Claude Lemagny, art critic specialized in photography, director of the Photography Collection at the National Library of France

 “Dear Juan, thank you a thousand times for the photos. Very good work. One of them, the one of the lighthouse, will appear on the flaps of the Catálogos editions, with your name at the bottom, if you don't mind. A big hug, Eduardo” 

Eduardo Galeano, author, Montevideo, Uruguay

“Dear Mr. Hitters, your photographs have arrived. Excellent work!” 

Hartmut Pfeiffer, art director, Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

“The photos have arrived and they look great. Our photo editor stopped by my office to show them off and praise them. He says it's a first class job”

Lidia Rebouças, Revista Exame, Sao Paolo, Brazil

 “Thank you so much for your recommendation of Juan Hitters. He couldn't have been more pleasant to work with, and he really did a super-duper job. He is extremely professional, and considering all the difficulties you (Argentines) have been experiencing these past few weeks, I particularly appreciate the effort he put into the images… The photos are, as always, great. Thank you for a truly complete job. I wish every photographer I work with was as nice. Thank you again” 

Mary Burr, Associate General Editor/Photography Editor, Forbes CCCP/Four Seasons Magazine, NYC

“Thank you very much for the reference of Juan Hitters. He is a very nice guy and a great professional. I have received your material and I am very happy”

Pablo Olmos Adamowich, designer, Planeta Humano Magazine, Madrid

“Your photography for the cover of the new Dino trio album is great! It looks like an oil painting. I still love and use the portraits you did of Dino and I in Buenos Aires”

Anja Lechner, cellist, Munich

“I loved the photos. I'm always dissatisfied with the photos I get, I loved these. The photographer is a genius! I should get him to do my press. Thanks again.”

Adriana Rosenberg, director Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires

“The photos are great, really great. As always it's a pleasure to work with you. Congratulations!”

Corina Capuano, director Fox Latinamerican Channel, Buenos Aires

Juan is a tireless worker. Among the privileges of a friendship with people who do, (There are people who do and people who say. Those who do, do; and those who say, say about those who do, don't do) is to be able to get into their kitchens and watch them do their work. Guillermo Vilas, after playing four hours of tennis under the January sun, invites me to play basketball. -After playing tennis, I like to do a bit of sport," he says. Ada Concaro after five hours of cooking in Tomo 1 offers me an omelette before leaving. -It's five minutes, she says. It's a piece of cake. And she brings the omelette. While I wait for Juan to finish tidying up his artefacts I wander around his loft on Darwin Street. It looks more like a Lufthansa timetable than a photography studio. -What a mess! he complains. A troupe of stars and vedettes from América TV have just passed by. I look around me and the only thing that's messy is me. Everything is where it should be. Once again I stand in front of the composition of photos that he hung on his biggest wall. I am again surprised by the precision. I find some boxes labelled "discards" and start to look. What looks to him like a box of leftovers stacked "as it comes" is what would have been some years ago, for a Microsoft engineer and programmer, the inspiration for Windows. Boxes containing envelopes containing envelopes containing envelopes containing more envelopes. Carefully titled, ordered from largest to smallest, impeccable, I take one of the envelopes and open it fearfully. They are aerial shots of Buenos Aires, hanging from a helicopter; the focus is rabid. I open another envelope labelled "portraits". Ramiro Agulla, Carolina Aubele, Carlos Calvo, Dino Saluzzi, Mario Pergolini, Mirtha Legrand, Verónica Varano appear. I open another one, "Lola". There are many beautiful photos, selenium-tinted, of his wife. I find myself in another sub-envelope, unusually photogenic and I steal the photo. After all, they are discards. Discards? Juan Hitters, like Ansel Adams, is convinced of the modernist precept that a work of art should express the artist's feelings about his subject. On this basis I believe that Juan naturally divides his work in two ways, also like Ansel Adams. The internal works - those that come from his desire to create images - the artist Hitters - and the external works - those that come from the commercial world and from which he lives - the professional Hitters. The artist Hitters' vision, even with the obvious fusion with his subject that emanates from the final copy, is strangely that of an external observer. His internal work, the best, is always faithful to the subject, rarely loyal (because of its natural distortion through the artist's eye) and always respectful (despite its proximity to the scene). The way he keeps his distance from the intimacy of the environment he creates, whether the subject is a person, a place or an object, is always perfectly phrased. Working with Juan on a photo shoot is a job in itself. He sets the pace and tone of the session the moment you step through the door. Of course, hours beforehand he already knew who was coming, what for, how much time. He helps himself a lot with the music, although I still didn't quite understand why sometimes it's Shostakovich, sometimes Daniel Lanois and sometimes Cassandra Wilson. My feeling when I get into his territory is that he absorbs my vertigo, my engine. And he makes it his own, for a while. I am at his mercy. I watch him float around the studio much faster than I can turn my head. I'm lulled by his precision and the number of things he does simultaneously. He tells me how he sees the shot, how he intends to light it. During this time he "measures" my reflexes and my movements and synchronises them with his own. If the shot is a portrait of me, I suddenly notice that my reactions are almost Pavlovian. His gestures tell me precisely how, when and how often he is going to shoot, and they dictate my movements. If the shot is on location, for example of a building, Juan will probably walk the three hundred and sixty degrees of the perimeter and find the architect's point of view. He plants his Sinar camera, a sort of brontosaurus with an accordion neck, and begins to contort his bellows. I look at the building, which is tapering upwards, towards the sides, it doesn't fit in my field of vision, I turn, I go back. Juan continues to zigzag his bellows. Suddenly I discover that I was fooled at school. All the laws of perspective are false. The camera screen shows a perfect volume. The sides are parallel, the base is as wide as the crown. Moreover, the light falls as if I had oriented the sun with my hand. The people passing by are carefully chosen extras. The sky looks like a poster in a tourist agency. The trees, greener, leafier. Click".

Lorenzo Shakespear, graphic designer,  for Summa+ Magazine #43  June/July 2000