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Invader invades the Basque Country from November 7 to 8, 2024

Photo du rédacteur: Arthur ClassArthur Class

The internationally renowned street artist Invader began an invasion of the Basque Country on the night of November 7 to 8, 2024. His first mosaics installed in the region are referenced BAB in his Flashinvader application. He began to invade Biarritz, Anglet and Bayonne. Perhaps he will go as far as Bidart, Guétary or even Saint Jean de Luz… to be continued… To date, the artist has installed 22 works, mainly in Biarritz, but also in Anglet and Bayonne. Let's hope that he continues to pose them, throughout the Basque country, and, why not, that he publishes a plan of this invasion. Invader is a French street artist and mosaicist, born in France in 1969. Since 1996, he has been installing a series of Space Invaders, made in mosaics, on the walls of large international metropolises.

In the photo above, one of the first works (mosaic) installed by the street artist Invader in the Basque country, in Biarritz, at the famous surf spot of the Côte des Basques. This is the beginning of the invasion of the Basque Country.
In the photo above, one of the first works (mosaic) installed by the street artist Invader in the Basque country, in Biarritz, at the famous surf spot of the Côte des Basques. This is the beginning of the invasion of the Basque Country.

Franck Slama was born in 1969. As a child, he played the video game Space Invaders. A student at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, Invader has been installing a series of Space Invaders made in mosaic tiles or tesserae on the walls of major international metropolises since 1996. To maintain his anonymity, the artist chooses to appear masked during his interviews. The installation of his works, which is most often carried out without prior agreement from the holder of the location, constitutes what he calls The Invasion. Several specialized galleries, such as Class Art Biarritz (pop art and street art gallery), offer works by the artist for sale, whether invasion kits, aliases, screen prints , or invasion guides. His artistic approach — The Invasion — began the day when Invader landed the first Space Invader in a street in Paris, near the Place de la Bastille in 1996. This work, now covered with a layer of coating, has for the artist become a fossilized Space Invader, caught in the sediments of the city. The program of this “invasion” really began in 1998. Paris, considered its cradle, is the place of the highest concentration of these “urban viruses”. Invader defines himself as a public space hacker spreading a mosaic virus in the streets. The street is his canvas, his interventions of gifts to the city and its inhabitants. As of November 3, 2024, there are 4,219 Invader mosaics scattered across 171 cities around the world. Following an argument common to representatives of street art, the artist considers that museums and contemporary art galleries are not accessible to everyone, which is why he installs his work in public spaces, making it visible to as many people as possible. number. Invader's approach comes down to three points: the meeting between the mosaic and the pixel, the transposition of a video game into reality and an invasion process on a planetary scale. His works are not posed at random. The artist chooses his locations according to various criteria which may be aesthetic or tactical. The artist says he prefers sites where attendance is high, but does not neglect more isolated urban sites: “A good spot is like a revelation… it catches the eye. » He sees himself as an “urban acupuncturist”. The mosaics installed in the Basque Country, in Biarritz, Bayonne, or even Anglet, are not done at random. They were the subject of meticulous location research and identification. Each of his works is unique. The repertoire of its characters now extends to Star Wars (London), the Pink Panther, or Mega Man. In Hong Kong, his works evoke martial arts where red and gold tones reflect the traditional Chinese colors of earth and fire. Typically, mosaics are placed three to four meters above the ground. Invader has developed methods and techniques to reach places that are sometimes dangerous and difficult to access. In April 2013, the artist unveiled a Spider-Man placed very high on the gable wall at the corner of rue Saint-Roch and rue d'Argenteuil in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. In September 2004, in Los Angeles, Melrose Avenue, he produced his first large format Space Invader with a dimension of 6 × 4 m, a surface “adapted to the American scale”. On June 23, 2016, Invader broke its record by installing a Space Invader with the image of Dr House measuring 10 × 5 m in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, on one of the facades of the Salpêtrière hospital. Personalities have been models for Invader. In January 2016, in Clermont-Ferrand, he created a mosaic several meters high representing Serge Gainsbourg in the street that bears his name. Mosaic, unalterable and of long-lasting colors, is a material suitable for exterior urban surfaces. In addition, the square shape of its tesserae refers to the pixel. To fix them, Invader uses professional glues and cements. The models are made in advance. When Invader arrives in a city, he first obtains a map of it to organize his “invasion”. Once done, it takes him at least a week to fully invest it, in absolute clandestinity. Each Space Invader is indexed in a database where the date, location, points awarded are referenced (which are counted in FlashInvaders, the official application of the artist, a game which allows you to go in search of your urban mosaics, earn points and compete with other players) and two photographs of the work in place (a close-up and a wide shot). Invader gives these photographs more of a work value than a document. On peut voir dans la vidéo ci-dessous, les points attribués lors du flash, avec l'application FlashInvaders, d’une mosaïque posée par l'artiste contemporain, côté à l'international, Invader, sur la célèbre Villa Belza de Biarritz, dans le Pays Basque. Invader a également mis des oeuvres à Bayonne, en centre ville.

When Invader deems its intervention satisfactory, a topographical plan is drawn then printed with the help of a local partner for distribution to the general public. Particular care is taken because each of them summarizes the entire process. Each shot has its own aesthetic, its own style, and tells its own story. In Montpellier, the locations of the mosaics were chosen so that together they form a Space Invader on the plan. Since the beginning of his career, the materials and subjects have been improved to become the Space Invaders as we know them today. While tiles and “space invaders” are still his favorite theme, characters from other video games like Super Mario have appeared on streets around the world. Invader, for example, used the graphic codes of the Basque flag to create the visual identity of its invasion of Anglet, Bayonne, Biarritz, Bidart, and thus create a visual identity specific to the Basque country. The video below shows the mosaic “Vamos a la playa”, placed on the large beach of Biarritz, in the Basque Country, by the street artist Invader, on November 8, 2024. Invader also placed some in Anglet, on the promenade from the beach.

At the beginning of the 21st century in Paris, Invader created a style he called “Rubikcubism”. It is characterized by the use of Rubik's Cube as a medium. Thanks to this process, Invader extends its approach to the relationship between the pixel and the mosaic. In 2005, he began creating what he called object paintings. The constraints of the object, its size and its palette limited to six colors lead him to produce works which are only revealed to the viewer when he takes a step back or when we look at them through the screen of his smartphone . Invader takes and twists iconic images from the history of art such as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. This is the first in a series called Rubik Master Pieces. In 2006 he created the work Rubik Origine, a tribute to the famous painting The Origin of the World by Gustave Courbet. In 2008, to represent the fourteenth Dalai Lama, he created Rubik Dalai Lama after his meeting with Tibetan refugees in Nepal. In the Rubik Bad Men series, Invader takes portraits of “villains” or anti-heroes, whether real or fictional: from Florence Rey to Carlos, including members of the RAF , Scarface or Maleficent. With his Rubik Low Fidelity series, the music-loving artist decides to transpose the images of his ten favorite albums into his “Rubikcubist” universe for the Top10 exhibition at the Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York. The square format and the very elaborate images of the record covers lend themselves to the exercise. The series will be expanded with new works presented in particular during the Low Fidelity exhibitions at the Lazarides Gallery in London in 2009 and at the Le Feuvre gallery in 2011. Victim of its success, Invader is copied a lot. Multiple artists copied his style and placed mosaics in the streets. The FlashInvaders application allows you to authenticate the artist's real works. Likewise, there are many fake invasion kits in circulation on the market. It is absolutely necessary to contact a specialized gallery such as Class Art Biarritz, to avoid fakes. Class Art Biarritz offers multiple works by the street artist Invader, whether screen prints, invasion kits (multiple edition mosaics intended to be installed at home), aliases (duplicates of works placed in the street and sold in gallery), or invasion guides (books) and unique works.

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