​Anonymous street artist Invader descends upon Hong Kong for a solo exhibition

Invader is a French urban artist who is known for making pixelated mosaics from ceramic tiles modelled after 8-bit video games from the 1970s–1980s, especially the titular aliens from the 1978 arcade game Space Invaders. He is no stranger to Hong Kong, having 'invaded' the city several times before and left several mosaics on walls around the city, but never before showing work at an exhibition.

The 40-something artist has captivated the world with his art, throwing up work in highly visible locations in somewhere around 80 cities around the world (according to Wikipedia, as of January 2020, Invader has created mosaics in 79 cities, with 3858 Space Invaders comprising over 1.5 million ceramic tiles). This time, he will return to Hong Kong with his first solo exhibition.

Titled ‘Hanging / Hong Kong / 2020’, the exhibition will open on July 10 at the Over the Influence gallery in Central. The show will see the artist showcase some of the iconic designs and creations that have been spotted all over the world, from walls, ledges, overhangs and more. That said, the work won’t be re-appropriated art from the streets but replicas created by the artist for display purposes since he can’t very well pull public displays of art. Instead, they are aliases — which are one-off recreations signed by the artist himself.

Continuing the trend he established with his ‘Rubik Mona Lisa’ in 2005 (which recently sold for US$520,680 at a modern art auction in Paris), he will also show a series of ‘RubikMasterpieces’ inspired and influenced by historical paintings by Paul Gaugin, Vincent Van Gogh and Édouard Manet.

If you’re lucky enough to attend, you could very well be rubbing shoulder with the artist himself. Invader is widely known to only appear behind a mask when working so that he may visit his own exhibitions without anyone recognising him.

‘Hanging / Hong Kong / 2020’ runs at Over the Influence Gallery in Central from July 10 - August 8.

[via HYPEBEAST]