Darmstadt Secession presents sculptures between nature and technology – exhibition from December 11 to January 9 in the Raum für Kunst (Space for Art)
What happens when industrial remnants coalesce into new, alien forms? Sculptor Urban Hüter explores this question in his exhibition "Airlock," on display at the Raum für Kunst in Darmstadt from December 11, 2026, to January 9, 2027. The Frankfurt-based artist transforms industrially manufactured objects, metal, and technical fragments into unusual sculptures that exist somewhere between machine and organism. The Darmstadt Secession will open the exhibition on Friday, December 11, at 7 p.m.
When new beings emerge from industrial waste
For his sculptures, Urban Hüter uses materials originally created for entirely different purposes. Metal parts, technical fragments, and industrial remnants are assembled into complex, amorphous structures.
The resulting material assemblages sometimes resemble organic forms, without completely concealing their technical origins. What was previously tool, casing, or waste takes on a new form.
This process creates forms that defy clear categorization. They appear neither entirely as machines nor as living beings, but rather exist in an intermediate state.
This ambiguity is an essential characteristic of Hüter's artistic work.
"Airlock" as a space between two states
The exhibition title "Airlock" describes more than just a technical transition space. For the artist, the term symbolically represents a threshold where conditions change and existing boundaries become permeable.
His works bring together nature and technology, creation and destruction, as well as the familiar and the foreign.
The sculptures raise questions about the relationship between humans and their environment. They show how human intervention alters materials and landscapes, and how something new can emerge from the remnants of these changes.
It remains unclear whether these strange structures represent a new beginning or rather a reminder of a world that has already been lost.
Questions about creation and transience
Behind these unusual material combinations lie fundamental questions: What does it mean to create forms and thereby intervene in the world? How far does human control extend over one's own creations? And when do these creations develop an autonomy that defies the original will?
Hüter's sculptures move between such contrasts. They combine ideas of transience and renewal, of control and uncertainty.
The exhibition invites visitors to view industrial materials from an unusual perspective and to reflect on the boundaries between the artificially created and organic life.
Urban Hüter received an award in Darmstadt in 2016
Urban Hüter was born in 1982 and lives and works in Frankfurt am Main.
He began his artistic training with an apprenticeship as a stonemason and stone sculptor, which he completed in 2003.
He then studied Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg, graduating in 2013 as a master student of Professor Ottmar Hörl.
A special connection to the Darmstadt art scene has existed since 2016. In that year, Hüter was awarded the prize for young art by the Darmstadt Secession.
With "Air Lock", the artist now presents his works in the art space in downtown Darmstadt.
Exhibition until January 9, 2027
The exhibition will open on Friday, December 11, 2026, at 7 p.m.
The sculptures will then be on display until and including Saturday, January 9, 2027, during the regular opening hours of the art space.
Visitors can visit the exhibition on Thursdays and Fridays from 4 pm to 7 pm and on Saturdays from 12 pm to 3 pm.
The most important information
What: Exhibition “Air Lock” by Urban Hüter
When: December 11, 2026 to January 9, 2027
Opening: Friday, December 11, 2026, 7 p.m
Where: Raum für Kunst, Luisenstraße 16, Darmstadt
Opening hours:
Thursday and Friday: 4 pm to 7 pm
Saturday: 12 pm to 3 pm
Artist: Urban Hüter, sculptor from Frankfurt am Main
Exhibition: Sculptures and material assemblages made from industrially manufactured objects, metal and technical fragments
Organizer: Darmstadt Secession
(DARMSTADT – RED/PM)
