Aww?

Yikes, this is the stuff of nightmares!

Image taken from a mothballed project for a Disney competitor to the Matrix trilogy.

I too hate the word cute and the overkill of bunnies and ducks (j/k, Sandra!) I'm as big a sucker as the next person when it comes to smiling at a little kid or kitten. But I think we are raising our children to have no idea that visuals can convey soft, warm, happy feelings. They're too bombarded by blood, guts, car crashes and gangsta culture to have even an iota of a cute gene. And that's sad.

Looks like the "Coming of the Anti-Mouse" or "Anti-Mickey."

Does anyone recognize any of these famous "cute" images?

Cute is a four-letter word....

Sorry to keep adding images! I just keep thinking of more "cute" artworks that I love!

Okay, I saw the one with the sheep and started singing...

"I put my sheep in a box...."

Couldn't help myself.

I recognized the Jeff Koons balloon animal as well; and that's his puppy two images below.

You're too good Mme S! And you're cute!

The first one is Marilyn Manson, who, while endlessly weird is almost never cute.

The second is by Takashi Murakami. Which is what you get if you take Andy Warhol and let him breed with Minnie Mouse. Cute? Sometimes. But his is more a statement on his culture than cute.

The third is Madonna, I believe. Probably from her 1985 Playboy spread. But I'm not googling to check. Can be cute.

The fourth looks like it is Ronald Kurniawan inspired but I'm not familiar with it. It would be cute with the right drugs.

The fifth...balloon animals always seem vaguely phallic to me. In the right mood I'd call them cute

The sixth, God only knows. Some Japanese anime it looks like. Not cute. Bizarre.

The 7th is a sort of giant topiary dog outside the Guggenheim in Bilboa. This one qualifies as cute. It is made of flowers. It has to be.

The last is part of Cindy Sherman's Clowns series. Not cute. Likely not meant to be cute as it was inspired by 9/11. I don't really get it.

Do I win a prize?

Oh my! Mme Green is very very good and very very very cute!

No! Don't get cute!

I don't want to be cute. Cute is 12 noon. I want to be midnight.

"...nothing cuter than a French dude."

I can think of a few things.

"Cute is 12 noon. I want to be midnight."

LOL! I love it!

#4 and #6

My dear Mme S: I will post a full listing of artworks later - in the meantime I will savor torturing you with this cavalcade of cuteness!

Liz AND I have equally tuned radios in our heads, "sheep in a box".

There is something very strange about my makeup, and I'm not talking mascara.

Although I admire your post, I don't find any of the things in it "cute", I find them rebattu or at minimum bagatelles.

No, I got #4. I just checked and it is Ronald Kurniawan. 6 is beyond me though. I asked one of the boys and he thinks it is an album cover...but of what he doesn't know.

Ha! This may be a good theme for Open Call! Perhaps we need to go beyond sentimental puppy photos and embrace a full-on, no holds barred, take no prisoners "Cute Face-Off!"

The purple baloon dog and the topiary dog are Jeff Koons.

The sheep is Adel Abdessemed?

You might want to read "Cute, Quaint, Hungry And Romantic: The Aesthetics Of Consumerism" by Daniel Harris. A blazing treatise/indictment of all that is cute, quint, cool, etc. as those terms have come to mean through total market co-opting.

that clown gives me the heebie jeebies

M. Chariot, answers in the file name. cute!

Full-on answers for the detail-oriented:

Marilyn Manson / The Golden Age 1 / Gottfried Helnwein / 2003

Takashi Murakami / Kakaikiki Series / 1996

Madonna / Vanity Fair / Stephen Meisel / 1992

Ronald Kurniawan / Late Night at LACMA / 2008

Jeff Koons / Balloon Dog / 1995

Saiman Chow / Sexy Boy / 2000

Jeff Koons / Puppy / Guggenheim in Bilbao / 1992

Cindy Sherman / Metro Pictures / 2004

Damien Hirst / Away From The Flock / 1994

Jeff Koons / Hanging Heart / 1994-2006

Huh. So I was right about most of them. Makes me feel so validated. For some reason.

You were quite right, Mme Green! Please accept my apology for my earlier miscalculation.

I'm cute: you want also that I should be precise?

Encountering Murakami's "Kakaikiki Series" on the cover of O_S has left me slightly nauseated all weekend long!

You only have yourself to blame, darling.

The Uncanny Valley is one area code over from the Cliff of Cuteness.

Hello Kitty, from her Undisclosed Location, is even now plotting the Emergency Procedures that will allow her to govern our world without pretense. Snarling at the maid, she knocks over the champagne bucket next to her defibrillator and fixates on the developer's map of Area 51 next to her cigar humidor. The strip mall will go there, the Blackwater Security and Hospitality center will go there. The botox clinic will fit nicely between the abattoir and the Hannah Montana Superstore. She laughs, but it is not a happy laugh.

You have been warned.

I'm not going to read the comments and give this a go, starting from the bottom: 1. Jeff Koons (Can't recall the name, I saw a version of this on the roof of MoMA) 2. Damien Hirst, no doubt 3. I dunno 4. Jeff Koons, Puppy 5. Hmmm...Japanese, but dunno 6. Jeff Koons, Balloon Dog (or something like that--methinks someone either loves or loathes Mr. Koons) 7. Dunno, looks like it may be by one of the American guys influenced by manga 8. I seem to remember her from a dream last night 9. Takeshi Murakami 10. either from Fantasia (when I was on a bad trip) or an Aphex Twin video