06.10—07.15.2022

Cute Gloom

a group show of 40 artists & 80 works

Lauren Powell Projects is excited to present Cute Gloom, opening Friday, June 10th and running through July 16th. Initially conceived in collaboration with featured artist Benjamin Cabral, the project grew to include about 80 pieces by 40 artists examining the harmonies and tensions between the aesthetic category of cute and its counterpart gloom.

In the hyper commodified world that we live in, cuteness is an aesthetic category frequently employed to sell products ranging from electronics accessories to sponges to cars. The cuteness of these products underscores their subordinate nature; they exist to serve us, or, as scholar Sianne Ngai characterizes it, cuteness is “a way of aestheticizing powerlessness.” A confrontation with this helplessness has the power to produce a wide range of emotions from the viewer, from tenderness and a desire to care for the cute thing to aggression and a desire to destroy it.  The dichotomous nature of these responses is also present within the characteristics of the cute thing itself. The helpless is often the most likely to lash out. The baby rattlesnake is the most dangerous. Beware the wounded animal.    

Benjamin Cabral’s work employs this inherent instability that cuteness can possess. In his ceramic mosaic painting depicting a house on fire, angles fly overhead as flames engulf the roof. It is unclear if these angels are guardians or avenging. And the cartoonish smiles and frowns of the ceramic angels attached to a garden trellis are similarly difficult to read. Are they taking pleasure in destruction or providing comfort?

Similarly, the creature centered in Tsai-Ling Tseng’s painting, I am Special, holds a place somewhere between fairy tale and nightmare. There is something decidedly wrong about this animal with a paintbrush impaled in its forehead, blood dripping down, yet its strangely human face smiles at us. Will this animal guide us to safety through this threatening looking forest or bring about our destruction? The cute and the uncanny merge and suspend the viewer in a place of deep uncertainty.

The intertwined nature of aggression and submissiveness within the cute makes cuteness a surprisingly effective and affective communication tool. The disarming nature of cuteness leaves the viewer open and vulnerable. The helpless/hostile nature of the cute allows the artist to convey both a sincere need and the determination to bring it about. The characters populating Clayton Skidmore’s watercolors bring to mind the anthropomorphized creatures of childhood entertainment. The quaint familiarity of the scene provides a backdrop to Skidmore’s explicit command Leave Nature Be. The cuteness of the image contrasts with the seriousness of the demands and this contrast reinscribes the message.  

This destabilizing effect coupled with an uncomfortable illegibility is present in Avner Chaim’s challenging paintings of brightly colored, smiling swastikas. The childish smiles over these universally recognized symbols of human evil are profoundly absurd and jarring. This decontextualization emphasizes the deeply contradictory nature of the symbol itself as it shifted from a sign of good fortune in the ancient world to a racist fascist symbol to the visual representation of evil itself. What happens when a symbol of evil is made cute? What tools do we have to counteract hate in our world?

The cute, of course, can also provide a source of comfort and pleasure. Kayla Mattes’s weaving, The Fight, depicts two cats as they engage in battle with each other. The format of the work as a weaving puts it in dialogue with grand scale medieval tapestries depicting battle victories. A ceramic title above tells the viewer that this is “The Fight,” an event of note. The ceremonious presentation underscores the minor nature of Mattes’s scene allowing us to read it as both humorous and comforting. It reminds us of the antics and self-serious nature of our pets at home. And as we continue to collectively experience the social, political, and economic distress of 2022, something that gives us a laugh or a moment to just feel okay becomes of critical importance.

Cute Gloom reminds us of the utility cuteness can possess in difficult times, from providing a source of comfort and self-soothing to serving as a visual language to convey needs, wounds, fears, and even anger. When faced with a world of gloom, what can cute do for us?

Artists: Alaïa Parhizi, Alexandra Hammond, Alex Meadows, Amiee Byrne, Andrew Jilka, Andy Harman, Avner Chaim, Barnett Cohen, Beck+Col, Benjamin Cabral, Caroline Jacobson, Cassidy Early, Chanel Von Habsburg-Lothringen, Chase Barney, Cheyann Washington, Christina Barrera, Clayton Skidmore, Colin J. Radcliffe, Delia Brown, Eric Lotzer, Frank O. Maier, Gaia Marcaccini, JD Raenbeau, Jebediah Long, Johnny Smith, Kayla Mattes, Marianna Peragallo, Matthew Sweesy, Mike Fernandez, Nadia Fediv, Patty Gone, Raymie Iadevaia,  Rebecca Morgan, S. Klitgaard, Sarah Thibault, Trulee Hall, Tsai-Ling Tseng, Vyczie Dorado, WANG Chen, Whit Harris

Text by Elise Cabral