INSECT(AI)RIUM, the digital art exhibition by Adrian Grecu, presented in the space of Bastion Multifunctional Center in Timișoara, between August 1 and 14, 2025, “represents the continuation of an exhibition theme begun by the artist in 2017, under the title “Incomplete Survival Kit”. At that time, a series of works were created and presented, with insects, works made with the C.G.I. technique (Computer Generated Images), a technology for digital image processing in 3D format. Seen then, from a Kafkaesque perspective, “insects” represented interpretations of personal states and reactions to the surrounding realities.
In INSECT(AI)RIUM, the theme evolves towards dystopian images, with references to the absurdity of conflict situations between people and between countries, where these insects become drones, instruments of destruction. The works in this new series are a reaction to the turbulent events of the present, signs of the uncertainty and changes we are experiencing. Created with the help of artificial intelligence programs and by applying multiple interventions, in a complex human-computer dialogue, the entire exhibition is a visual-expressive remodeling of concepts imagined through words.
The exhibition, curated by Horațiu Cristea, is structured on two levels, one Edenic and the other conflictual. The Edenic is presented in a manner similar to the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, and the conflictual state finds its resources in the graphic works of art that we encounter in Goya’s series, „Disasters of War”. The two great artists are in fact the artistic and ideological landmarks of Adrian Grecu’s exhibition.
The artist capitalises on his personal imprint through the accuracy of the compositional, chromatic and formal indications transmitted to the computer. This working method reproduces the mental process of creation in the traditional manner, highlighting the act of creation as a process of a mental, imaginative nature. Artificial intelligence offers, in this case, an abstract environment and, more than that, shortens the path between the imaginary and its transposition into real images.
Oscillating between abstract and figurative, between poetic and analytical, the exhibited works are thought-images, expressions of awareness of a dystopian present.” (curatorial text)
Adrian Grecu (b.1969, Cluj-Napoca) is a graduate of the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, as well as the Faculty of Physics at Babeș-Bolyai University. He has had solo exhibitions in Romania, in Cluj and Bucharest, as well as in Germany, Italy, and the United States. He has participated in various international graphic festivals in Poland, Japan, Korea, and Belgium. He is currently a researcher at the University of Art and Design in Cluj–Napoca, and is completing a doctorate at the same university.
