The exhibition CUTE opened in London this week – a kitsch-fest with dark undertones. What our desire for a fantasy world in pastel colors has to do with time.
When the inventor of the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee, was asked ten years ago what online development he would never have predicted in his life, he didn’t have to think twice. “Kitten,” he said.
Admittedly, cute kitsch has been around for centuries. Menageries of cats, dogs and ballerinas made of glass and porcelain populated grandmas’ sideboards around the world. The detail of the two bored angels from Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” is now part of pop culture, so often has it been printed, framed and imitated. Generations of children played with My Little Pony. Nature has programmed us humans to like cute things in order to save ourselves from extinction.