Everything Can Be Different identifies a new trend in contemporary art practice that emphasizes generosity and playfulness. The gentle exhibition title says it all: the artists with their works - and the exhibition - provide alternatives: they encourage us to think in new ways about art, society and how we organize our lives within both. Responding to a general sense of information overload, the artists represented here have avoided two classic positions: They have neither withdrawn into abstraction or art deprived of sociological or political issues, nor have they decided to create work that attempts to fight the system and wrestle with its economic and political forces. Instead, these thirteen artists have invented playful alternatives: In their photographs, installations, and sculptures they essentially offer models, modest private utopias, or alternative realities.

This optimistic game-related approach is reflected in art developments on both sides of the Atlantic but is perhaps most clearly articulated in Europe. Everything Can Be Different brings together well-known and emerging American and European artists, among them Emese Benczur, Olafur Eliasson, Annika Eriksson, Anna Gaskell, Liam Gillick, Carsten H¦ller, Pierre Huyghe, Koo Jeong-a, Manfred Pernice, Superflex, Apolonija Sustersic, Elin Wikstr¦m, and Andrea Zittel.

These artists focus on establishing personal relationships and encouraging communication. Construction and reconstruction are more important than deconstruction. And possibilities, rather than difficulties, are emphasized and explored, even when the uncanny or uncomfortable is in focus. Art is used here as an exploration into how things can be constructed differently.

The works in Everything Can Be Different highlight possibilities and change: For instance, Anna Gaskell sets up a parallel history to "Alice in Wonderland," the point of departure for her work in this exhibition. With his collection of new games, Carsten H¦ller provides not-yet-imagined ways of playing. Koo Jeong-a creates personal miniature worlds out of found materials that she meticulously arranges on a table. And Elin Wikstr¦m experiments in trust when she invites a number of women to meet with one another without prior knowledge of each other. If utopias are present, they are in the form of micro-utopias, small and local versions, for here and now.

Most of the media used in contemporary art are visible in this exhibition: installations include a model-like "stage" platform by Lliam Gillick. Sculpture is represented by an enormous piece of furniture by Manfred Pernice and an artificial waterfall by Olafur Eliasson. There are two video installations, a re-cast of the film "Atlantic" (1929) by Pierre Huyghe, and a music piece by Annika Eriksson. Some of the works are interactive, such as the orange juice bar by Apolonija Sustersic. A Web-based project by the group Superflex completes the set. Everything Can Be Different is both playful and serious, imaginative and specific. It takes advantage of the fact that there are few, if any, set rules for art practice.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, with a text by curator Maria Lind and brief essays on each of the artists. Lind is the director of the Munich Kunstverein, Munich Germany.