A Barbie-Cropped CGI Human Asks ChatGPT for Bad Luck. Welcome to Venice.

Imagine a naked CGI human with a Barbie crotch, painted white, pupils erased, asking ChatGPT how to professionally say "bad luck." This is not a fever dream. This is Screen Melancholy (2026), an animated video by Li Yi-Fan, currently making waves at the offsite Taiwan Pavilion in Venice.

This digital oracle delivers hard truths: "It is inauspicious to be born after 1989." Which, if you think about it, is both impressive and slightly terrifying. The video itself? Described as chaotic, absurd, uncanny, and, yes, hilarious. ArtReview has even dubbed Li the "poet of enshittification." Let that title sink in.

The character in the video doesn't just deliver prophecies; it morphs. Into an eye, a prostate, a heart, an appendix. And it asks the kind of questions that make you pause your scrolling: "How's your relationship with all the images you've ever seen?" and "Do you know about animation? I can teach you, but I have to charge."

Ironically, the Taiwan Pavilion, a collateral event organized by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, offers "Free charging." Visitors can plug their phones into benches shaped like arms and feet. But the painted figure isn't having it, playfully scolding them: "Why are you charging your phone in public space? It's gross!" Because apparently that's where we are now: being shamed by digital art for low battery anxiety.

Li Yi-Fan's work is clearly hitting a nerve, and if you can't make it to Venice, you'll have another chance. His art will be shown in the US at CounterPublic in St. Louis this September, and he's also featured in the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh.

Fleshy Films and Vegetarian Videos

Beyond the digital prophet, Venice is leaning into the glorious return of video art. We're talking "fleshy films" and "vegetarian videos" — because why be boring? With huge LED screens that blend into their surroundings, these installations turn images into entire environments, looking particularly impressive when housed in an ancient palazzo.

The Fondazione In Between Art Film, at the Complesso dell'Ospedaletto, is a prime example. Janis Rafa's Baby I'm Yours, Forever (2026) is a standout, taking viewers into an industrial meat refrigeration plant. It's haunting, surreal, and manages to explore disgust without resorting to shock tactics. One scene seamlessly cuts from a dangling skinned carcass to a human figure contorted on a stripper pole. Elsewhere, milk cascades down a staircase like a ghostly waterfall. Rafa, a Greek artist known for focusing on animal life, navigates the line between visceral and preachy with impressive grace.

Then there's Lu Yang's "DOKU The Illusion" at Espace Louis Vuitton, offering a stark contrast to Li Yi-Fan's maximalism. The Louis Vuitton store has been transformed into a reflective chapel with a mirrored ceiling, turning the main video into a futuristic fresco. The film itself is a wild ride, blending Buddhist meditations on attachment with visuals that swing from anime to anatomy lessons to music videos. One moment you're getting an interior tour of the protagonist's torso, the next they're dancing with red eyeshadow. Thoughts on karma appear during a dance sequence in a grocery store meat aisle, where some cutlets are ominously labeled "human."

These exhibitions, along with a must-see show of Dominican painter Iván Tovar's capital-S Surrealist works, highlight a shared thread: a deep dive into the surreal. A century ago, Surrealists painted human-animal-object hybrids as fascism rose and reality seemed to unravel. That sensibility, it seems, has returned with a vengeance. And it's all making for some truly unforgettable art.