Group Exhibition:  The Archaeology of Cute ✦ The Monument of Pain

2025/11/05- 2025/11/14

Opening Performance: Oct 25, Saturday, 6–9:30 p.m.


Opening Party with Special Screening and Performance Nov 9th 3-6PM

Opens at Nov 5th, the exhibition is transforming the gallery into a hyper-emotional playground of sincerity, saturation, and sensory glitch.

Featuring artists Sissy Nunziata, Katrina Slavik, Leda Brittenham, Lizzy Choi, Shi/贲鸣珂, Yang Jingyuan, Sherly Fan, Megulogue, Wyatt Bertz, Martha Guillorn, Lin Liming, 熊子, Yi Chen (Natsume), Yang Hsu He, Echo He, Qiusi and Jingyi He, the exhibition stretches from kaomoji poetry to painting, sculpture, and video work, creating a layered universe where 痛 (ita) and 可爱 (kawaii) merge into a single, ecstatic pulse.

Borrowing from itabunka (痛) — Japan’s “pain culture” that celebrates excess, cringe, and emotional maximalism — the show asks: when love becomes too much, what does it look like? Through overloaded textures, sentimental objects, and pixelated confessions, the artists reveal how “cute” can hurt, and how “pain” can glitter.

“All that is serious melts into Cute,” wrote Amy Ireland and Maya B. Kronic — and this exhibition takes that meltdown literally. Here, cuteness isn’t escapism, but a strategy: a rebellion against numbness, a portal for unregulated feelings, a shrine built from obsession and sparkle.

The opening party on November 9 (3:00–6:00 PM) will feature live performances and screenings that extend this ecosystem of emotional blockchain aesthetics — part fever dream, part plush revolution.

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