Sugar Rush & Dopamine Hits: The Cute Escape at Kunsthalle Erfurt
The group show aspires to cover a lot without sugarcoating. But is the result cute or messy?
Scrambling For the Right Word
As I was explaining to my family what the show was about, I realized that my (Russian) mother tongue has no word for “cuteness”. We speak of cute stuff in adjectives, but no noun comes close to what the English word “cuteness” offers. If I were to visit an artist in their studio and call their work “cute”, there’s a high chance they’d take my comment as an insult. Calling something cute is belittling, infantilizing, underestimating, and not taking it seriously… or is it?
Cultural scientist Annekathrin Kohout and art historian Philipp Schreiner (both Millennial, German) curated the show together at Kunsthalle Erfurt. They told me that they aspire to frame cuteness as a social and political concept beyond consumerist and pop cultural aesthetics that were mostly the focus of cuteness-related exhibitions so far. Specifically, Philipp spoke of cuteness as “Haltung”, which, too, is hard to pin down to an English equivalent. “Stance” would probably come closest.
The full translated exhibition title is The Cute Escape: Empathy, Empowerment, Sensitivity. With Philipp’s and Annekathrin’s statement, that means that we look at cuteness as a political stance connected to escapism, empathy, empowerment, and sensitivity. Now that’s a lot of concepts if you ask me.
What is cuteness even? I sent Brian for a WDD (Wikipedia Deep Dive): According to Wiki, “Cuteness is a type of attractiveness commonly associated with youth and appearance.” Cambridge Dictionary states cuteness is “the quality of being pleasant and attractive.” Neither definition does the concept any justice. I’d say that cuteness is first and foremost a vibe. Cuteness, just like femininity, has a certain negative connotation if you believe that those qualities are somehow lesser than. Both concepts are also socially constructed. The exhibition glossary points out that the qualities of cuteness “appear appealingly powerless—small, soft, moldable, delicate. Appealing because they invite possession.” Spicy point. Jalapeño, even.
Yucky Cuteness
The Cute Escape brings together 23 artists who don’t treat cuteness as an isolated phenomenon. Instead, it’s getting muddy and blurred, more nuanced. Zsófia Keresztes’s (Millennial, Hungarian) Die Anatomie der Umarmung (2023) is an inherently weird work: A red apple kisses a reluctant green apple on the cheek. Both are pierced by worms, whose long bodies intertwine them into what looks like a hug. You know what it’s giving? Bible. This is so Judas betraying Jesus by kissing him on the cheek and getting him arrested (Matthew 26:48). A famous version of this moment is the fresco by Giotto. The apples might reference Adam and Eve eating the apple (a fruit in the original, but I digress) in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:6). Although one might argue that apples are more Charlie XCX than Bible in the year 2025.
Now, is this work cute? If you go with the shiny, glossy tiles, then arguably, yes. But when I focus on the slimy worm that makes its way through these apples, it’s rather yucky. Cuteness and aversion can coexist. Theresa Rothe’s (Millennial, German) fluffy fantasy creatures buzz and vibrate underneath their colorful fur with grumpy, soggy faces. Mary-Audrey Ramirez (Millennial, Luxemburgish) forms little early-evolution fellas that are kinda cute but kinda would scare me if one of them randomly ran in my direction. Their textures range from slimy to velvety, their eyes are bulging, and they have tails. It’s like a moth that, in theory, has a cute, fluffy surface but still comes across as gross (sorry for the insect racism). Harry Hachmeister (Gen X, German) contributed a painting of an ugly-cute dog. That fella sits on their butt and leans on a paw as if it tried to sit like a human. The fur is weirdly smudgy and fuzzy as if someone had fun in a puddle. And then there’s the tiny grin. It’s giving that meme that’s making fun of how people will have the ugliest dog in the world and still french kiss it as if it didn’t just sniff some other dog’s ass for the past 10 minutes.
And then cuteness can turn into a fetish. I think it’s impossible to talk about this aspect of pop culture without mentioning Britney Spears. As Tavi Gevinson (Millennial, US-American) outlined in her article for The Cut, people only ever saw Britney as empowered and fully in control of her sexuality or as a little girl who was manipulated by grown men into acting sexually. And some third perverted group probably saw her as an evil seductress. Barely any nuance. So there’s a line between cuteness as an aspect of sexual empowerment and its inappropriate sexual abuse. Beyond playing with cuteness aggression to an unhinged Marianna Simnett (Millennial, British) type extent, Rachel Maclean’s (Millennial, Scottish) 5-minute film Dr Cute (2019) brings “an off-brand Care Bear Professor of Sweet and Sinister Studies” onto the screen that looks like a Furry (please don’t google Yiff, Brian is traumatized).
Artists like Hypernormalisa (Gen Z, German) and Lena Kuzmich (Gen Z, Austrian), too, adopt an unsettling perspective on what is considered cute. Hypernormalisa combines nostalgic childhood toys into overstimulating, mutational compositions. She also addresses her Catholic upbringing with a toy-made cross and a churchy toy-altarpiece. This now opens very unsettling associations towards child abuse in the Church. It also makes me think of Mike Kelley (1954-2012, US-American). Do I still hate him? Yes. Would his work be appropriate for an investigation of cuteness, though? Yes. Lena’s work daddy´s grl <6 (2022) features a reclining girl with a very short crop top and a pink teddy bear masturbating next to her, it almost doesn’t stand out among all the bright glittery visuals. Jaime Scholnick's (Gen X, US-American) Hello Kitty Gets A Mouth (2003) follows the famous figure on her empowering journey to get a surgical mouth transplant so that she can finally experience an orgasm. But isn’t it ironic how these two positions and their exploration of sexuality and cuteness were curatorially confined to a dark corner of the exhibition?
All of this brings me to another question: Does an exhibition dealing with cuteness have to be cute in itself? This is like asking if an exhibition on food should be edible. I need to speak my truth and say that I hated that brick floor. It didn’t fit the show’s vibe at all. And I don’t mean in a campy way where you combine a yucky 70s rug with something edgy. A fluffy rug would have gone a long way.
Overstimulated — but not by Cuteness
I have some doubts about how representative this show is of the topic given that I don’t rock with some selected positions. When Annekathrin walked me through Niclas Castello’s (Gen X, German) mural, his name kinda rang a bell. The easiest description of that piece is to imagine Dan Perjovschi (Baby Boomer, Romanian) working with love instead of war. Like… It’s okay. But the scrumped canvases in glass boxes were screaming Red Chip Art so loud that it dawned on me: He did the woodlogs in hospital beds to criticize climate change. Good Lord, have mercy.
I would have switched Mona Broschár’s (Millennial, German) cake paintings for a small Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021, US-American) instead. Especially for the political implications of cuteness, it’s a shame not to have a Cosima von Bonin (Baby Boomer, German) piece. Did Annekathrin explain to me that it didn’t work out due to Cosima already having a lot in the pipeline? Yes. Am I still mad? Yes. Cause not even a lil edition? Not even a smaller work from her gallery’s storage? Sure, funding is always a limiting factor, but what about a teeeny tiny Yoshimoto Nara (Baby Boomer, Japanese)? Not for name-dropping, but exactly to showcase how he deals with cuteness as “Haltung”?
Christa Dichgans (1940-2018, German) was a great choice, though, because she’s pretty much buried underneath the Pop Art Canon, just like the toys in her Toy Still Life (New York) (1967) are reluctantly thrown away and pile up so that somebody can buy and consume more. Monira Al Qadiri’s (Millennial, Kuwaiti) Seismic Songs (2022) was an unexpected gem: A purple dinosaur does autotuned love song karaoke. Annekathrin told me that the technology behind Auto-Tune was invented by Dr. Andy Hildebrand, a scientist at Exxon who “helped to develop a software to process data from reflection seismology—that is, using seismic waves to determine whether or not there might be any oil or other substances worth drilling/fracking/mining for”. The climate change to music industry pipeline is insane. And so is the fact that the dinosaur is singing using a technology that helps find a material made out of its remains…
On this note, I don’t think that the number of works presented by some artists did the show any favor. It makes sense in Neven Allgeier’s (Millennial, German) case because his photographs change energy depending on how you combine them. But even there, I might have kept it more concise with 3 examples max. Most artists had way too many works. Harry had 12. TWELVE. Sure, I could cut ‘em some slack for the ceramic cats. Their grouping together adds to their cuteness as if you just saw them hanging out on the street. And positioning a cat on the stair handrail is in itself a cute curatorial choice.
As a little side note, there’s a display comparing Japanese Kawaii aesthetics and Kitsch. In general, I approve of historical context, but it’s giving Pandora, and I don’t mean the jewelry brand. Like you can’t just do a little allusion and leave that there. As I said, I’d rather limit the works per artist and include more positions instead. I was also missing more digital works and especially a focus on how AI changed cuteness with its caricaturesque visions. At the end, I can’t help but feel like Annekathrin and Philipp girlbossed a bit too close to the sun by trying to encompass so many aspects of cuteness into the show. But I’m still happy I made the trip.
The Cute Escape. Empathie, Empowerment, Empfindsamkeit, until May 18, 2025 at Kunsthalle Erfurt.
Kunsthalle Erfurt
Fischmarkt 7
99084 Erfurt
Website
Instagram: @thecuteescape
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Jennifer
The Gen Z Art Critic
i love how intensely this exhibition combats my immediate instinct to associate "cute" and "kitsch." fantastic exploration. thank you :)
Your take on the blurred lines between cute and unsettling was so compelling; this exhibition sounds like a wild ride through unexpected territory!