Dan Cretu, a Bucharest-based artist uploads his collage works related to pandemic issues on his Instagram account @dan_cretu.
Cretu is mixing the figures of classical art with contemporary photos. The results are surprising and sometimes spark laughter.
For example, Cretu creates a collage of Katsushika Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa, with soapy washing hand. It looks like the massive cresting wave will rinse the hand. It has at least two messages, first, don’t forget to wash your hands, and second, don’t dump your waste into the sea. Cretu is also known as an artist who voices for the environmental crisis.
Another work is mixing Boticelli’s Venus with the pattern of face mask. Cretu might think that not only people of 2020 who suffer from the pandemic but even Botticelli’s Venus has also mask tan line in her face if she lives now. He attaches the caption of this picture: “Summer of 2020”.
Monalisa is seen sitting in front of the opened window of her flat. She is in quarantine. Cretu adds hashtag: #stayhome.
Digital Collage, like what Cretu has done, shows that art in the age of cybernetics is interactive and participatory. Everyone can interpret and make ‘new’ things from the existed information. Digital collage also challenges the modernist aesthetics that emphasizes originality and purity aesthetics.
Thanks to Dan Cretu for your brilliant social commentary and collage artworks!