CUTE Exhibition

Somerset House, London will present a landmark art exhibition curated by Claire Catterall called “CUTE: The Irresistible Rise of Cuteness in Contemporary Culture” starting in January, 2024. I wrote an essay for the catalogue.

Louis Wain, Ginger Cat, 1931. Courtesy of Bethlem Museum of the Mind

The exhibition starts with cats, including paintings by Lous Wain like the one above, and Harry Pointer’s series of postcards from the 1870s.

Harry Pointer (1822-1889), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The exhibition covers the history of kawaii, including illustrators like Yumeji Takehisa, all the way through to Hello Kitty. There’s even a Hello Kitty disco!

Kodomo no kuni, children's magazine, cover Feb. 1923, vol. 2 no. 2, art by Yumeji Takehisa

The exhibition features various clusters. Crybaby explores how cuteness tugs at our heartstrings; Play Together is about togetherness and fun; Monstrous Other address the dark side of cute; Sugar-Coated Pill looks at how cuteness softens the unpleasant and unpalatable; and Hypersonic examines post-internet cuteness.