Rather than a formal presentation of a group show, Hütti is an installation within which works of artists are included. Based on an original concept design by Veit Laurent Kurz and Ben Schumacher, the exhibition at MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 is an unofficial follow up to Huettendasein, a cardboard version of an Alpine hut that was built by the artists in the backyard of an apartment building in Brooklyn last May. While a typically rural dwelling, the hut has also come to symbolize existential retreat or a philosophical space, and in this respect becomes the contextual, as well as architectural, framework for an artist-curated exhibition of formal sensibilities and affinities.

Over 50 artworks have been gathered from an open invitation to an extended network of European and US-based artists as well as gallerists, musicians, and students. These works, however, are subsumed into the installation as a whole, and stripped of individual identification, in effect, illustrate a fiction as opposed to an overarching thematic. In this sense, the show serves as not only a haphazard setting in which disparate artworks are collected but potentially creates a mythopoeic characterization of an unknown figure—a person who might inhabit such a space—through them.

The installation itself is built into Ludlow 38’s already-designed exhibition space, humorously conflating the oft-used binary of the inside and outside through the motif of the hut – a quintessential feature of the German, Austrian and Swiss countryside surrounding the Alps. Understanding the creative freedom afforded by artist-curating, one could see Kurz and Schumacher’s installation in the vein of late Surrealist exhibitions that abandoned neutral spaces in favor of immersive environments. Yet if Hütti is thought of as a framing device,  perhaps nowadays, it counters the generic exhibition-as-image that proliferates online, which has become an influential model for exhibition-making as well as contemporary art production.

Including works by Magnus Andersen, Maximiliane Baumgartner, Lorenzo Bernet, Juliette Blightman, Leda Bourgogne, Max Brand, Lutz Braun, Nicolas Ceccaldi, Lauren Burns-Coady, Dese Escobar, Elise Duryee-Browner, Michaela Eichwald, Anna Fehr, Jonathan Gean, Rochelle Goldberg, Paul Gondry, Lena Henke, Shelby Jackson, Yannic Joray, Jeffrey Joyal, Marie Karlberg, Valerie Keane, Jenni Knight, Marc Kokopeli, Veit Laurent Kurz, Jonas Lipps, Alexandra Metcalf, Ben Morgan-Cleveland, Brandon Ndife, Yair Oelbaum, Crystal Palmer, Anna Pierce, Jessica Polaniecki, Michael Pollard, Viola Relle & Raphael Weilguni, Kate Sansom, Benjamin Saurer, Mark von Schlegell, Max Schmidtlein, Andy Schumacher, Ben Schumacher, Taketo Shimada, Daniel Sperry, Stefan Tcherepnin, Stefan Thater, Hanna Törnudd, Ellie de Verdier, Raphaela Vogel, Lillian Paige Walton, Brook Sinkinson Withrow, Amelie von Wulffen, Mark Van Yetter, Jutta Zimmermann, and Alivia Zivich

Installation by Jonathan Gean, Paul Gondry, Veit Laurent Kurz, Michael Pollard and Ben Schumacher

Text by Saim Demircan

Graphic design by Scott Langer and Sunny Park

Exhibition photography by Yair Oelbaum

Curated by Saim Demircan, Veit Laurent Kurz and Ben Schumacher

Assistant: Lisa Kuon

Gallery Attendants: Amelie Meyer and Hiji Nam