Back when I was a kid, there were two kinds of crosses. ‘Ours’ and ‘Theirs’. ‘Ours’, aptly called a ‘crucifix’, featured Jesus in all his suffering. ‘Theirs’ was a more contemporary ‘cross’. Artist Stefan Strumble has combined my two kid notions of ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’. He puts Jesus on very modern crosses, some of which look like test patterns. And sometimes he keeps the crosses simple and paints Jesus.
Why does Strumbel do this? In an effort to exaggerate ‘objects of popular cult and culture with elements of urban art and pop art’ thereby creating ‘a world of illusion that reflects society’s real maladies.’ So, is this, as one commenter on Dezeen suggests, ‘banal, shameless’ and ‘mediocre’, or, in another’s view, does it make ‘something as lame as religion cool’?