THE CUTE SHOW | SHOWROOM

On the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin, EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present THE CUTE SHOW. More than 20 artists explore the duality of kitsch and its critique of modernity, technology, and online culture.

Bright, pastel-coloured fantasy worlds filled with unicorns, animals, and other fanciful creatures evoke feelings of tenderness and innocence. But is cuteness always this innocent? The rise of the aesthetic movement "cute" correlates directly with challenges of growing up and living in the digital age.

THE CUTE AND UNCANNY

CHRIS DRANGE transforms digital found objects into classical oil paintings, questioning authorship and originality. With his post-digital paintings of puppies, Drange aims to convey his feelings when seeing a puppy to the viewer. Oftentimes exaggerated and adorned with kitschy emojis, Drange creates images of cuteness, irony, and oddity.

LEONIE SPECHT's work mirrors self-optimization, cuteness, and pop culture, inviting the viewer to be a part of a narrow microcosm between reality and fantasy. A subtle perversion that no longer seems suspicious is manifested in her paintings. Specht is looking for common ground where the ordinary and the uncanny merge.

Irony meets romantic longing in ALBRECHT/WILKE’s paintings. The artist duo interweaves formal elements, art historical quotations, and a lot of humour with the use of their key subject: the examination of the German middle class milieu and the associated clichés and insignia of Germanculture.

DANIEL GEBHART DE KOEKKOEK toys with the absurdity of everyday life, using his highly acclaimed talent for the good, the bad, and the ugly to create equally unpolished and cute images, as seen in his yearly animal calendars featuring dogs, guinea pigs, alpacas, and more.

CLARE KENNY’s balloon-shaped sculptures PARTY'S OVER and ALL HOT AIR replicate the slightly sad, semi-deflated balloons left behind long after a party has finished.

THE CUTENESS OF THE EVERYDAY

JOSEFINE SCHULZ explores the different realities of life and celebrates the unexcited, everyday moments of friendly togetherness in familiar situations. Schulz uses the symbol of the dog as a faithful and cute companion for her oftentimes lonely protagonists, thereby exploring the role of the dog invarious realities of life.

Queer sensitivities and the beauty of gestures and tiny details are explored in MARCIN LASZCZEWSKI’s series.Laszczewski depicts self-portraits of headless busts, a reflection of the sweet personal journey to self-discovery.

Inspired by the CUTEST DREAM, CEVIN PARKERuses soft pastels to reveal traces of memory and represent a sensitive reflection of the world without ego.

ISIS MARIA NIEDECKEN brings small moments of joy from the everyday onto the canvas, whileaiming to find the beauty in small moments and make them tangible for others.

Conceptual artist JINY LAN deals with urban life in the world's metropolises and questions the moral and traditional images of women in China in extensive series, while finding beauty in these topics.

CUTENESS INSPIRED BY THE INTERNET

In his hyper realistic sculptures, JOACHIM BOSSE deals with consumerism, the influences of mass media, and the impact of echo chambers and social eco-systems in the digital age. Bosse remixes pop culture and recontextualizes famous iconography in order to question contemporary identities and cultural values.

MATEUSZ VON MOTZ’s FUCK NORMAL I WANT MAGIC series has gone viral for providing an ironic and empathetic commentary on an increasingly narcissistic society. Von Motz combines text and images on mirrors, referring to the digital meme culture.

With his mirror JUST THE TWO OF US, ANDY KASSIER writes an over-dimensional love letter to his viewers. Kassier observes phenomena in social media and the development of digital image cultures. He searches for answers to currently socially relevant questions: What is happiness?

Digital native ARVIDA BYSTRÖM has an intrinsic relationship to pink. Exploring femininities and its complexities, often tied to online culture, she travels in an aesthetic universe of disobedient bodies, selfie sticks and cute fruits in lingerie.

THE CUTE PORTAL by NADINE KOLODZIEY is an innovative and immersive augmented reality artwork that takes viewers on a journey into a magical world of cuteness, kawaii, and wonder.

ARNO BECK’s pen plotter drawing plays on our nostalgia of early computer games of the 1990s, using neon colours and pixelated images. With a special process of bouncing between the digital and physical worlds, Beck finds himself in the middle of those.

Visual artist MARGARET MURPHY focuses on topics like femininity, sexuality, and identity in a post-social media culture. Murphy’s art uses bright colours, lighting, props, and cute aesthetic accents to create visceral responses within the viewer.

Artists: Albrecht/ Wilke, Arno Beck, Joachim Bosse, Arvida Byström, Chris Drange, Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek, Claudia Hart, Andy Kassier, Clare Kenny, Nadine Kolodziey, Jiny Lan, Marcin Laszczewski, Margaret Murphy, Isis Maria Niedecken, Skye Nicolas, Cevin Parker, Leonie Specht, Josefine Schulz, Mateusz von Motz, Ruohan Wang