The Cult of Euphoria: SPRING/BREAK Art Show New York 2026

At SPRING/BREAK Art Show New York 2026, a poco art presented The Cult of Euphoria, a solo exhibition by Tiger Cai curated by Ann Shi. Paintings, animation, sculpture, and works on paper opened onto Cai’s Wonderland: a world at once playful and uneasy, distant enough to feel invented and close enough to return our own reflection.

Cai began developing the Wonderland series during the 2020 pandemic, when isolation altered both daily life and the terms of his art making. Rather than record that rupture directly, he built an imaginary world with its own characters, moods, and shifting rules. Its vivid surfaces invite delight; beneath them run uncertainty, appetite, and the need to belong.

The exhibition answered the fair’s theme, HIDE N SEEK, as a game, a stage of limbo,
and an invitation to be found. In Cai’s Wonderland, pleasure can conceal longing, a
bright persona can mask fear, and a figure that seems to be hiding may also be asking
to be found. The search moves both ways: viewers look for clues in the work while the
work catches them looking.

The title, The Cult of Euphoria, borrowed from one of the artist's works, carries a
deliberately unstable promise. Euphoria can be liberating, contagious, or coercive; a
cult offers belonging at the cost of surrender. Cai lets comedy and menace occupy the
same scene. His figures perform, beckon, and sometimes plead, leaving us to wonder
who is leading whom and what it takes to keep the celebration alive.

Across media, Cai’s world refuses a single viewpoint. Drawing offers the quick intimacy of a private thought; painting gives its characters a stage; sculpture draws them into the viewer’s space; animation lets their stories move and mutate. Together the works make Wonderland feel less like an escape than a mirror tilted just enough to reveal what ordinary life keeps out of sight.

About Tiger Cai
Tiger Chengliang Cai is a New York–based visual artist, animator, and filmmaker. Working
across painting, drawing, sculpture, animation, and moving image, he creates speculative
worlds in which humor, fantasy, and disquiet coexist. The Cult of Euphoria brings together
recent works from his evolving Wonderland project.

The Cult of Euphoria: Tiger Cai
Presented by a poco art
SPRING/BREAK Art Show New York 2026, Booth D34-35
555 West 57th Street, New York, NY
September 23–28, 2026

Collectors and press preview September 23, noon–5 PM
Opening night September 23, 5–8 PM
Public hours September 24–28, noon–7 PM