Footnotes

Provenance
Lazarides Gallery, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2009

Exhibited
Lazarides Gallery, Low Fidelity, London, 14 August - 12 September 2009

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist dated 2009.

魯比克－飆
225個魔術方塊有機玻璃
2009年作

背面簽名：Invader Rubik Bad 009 藝術家塗鴉
背面附倫敦Lazarides畫廊標籤

來源
倫敦Lazarides畫廊
現藏家於2009年直接購自上述畫廊

展覽
「低保真度」，Lazarides畫廊，倫敦，2009年8月14日至9月12日

此作品附2009年藝術家簽名證書


Invader is one of the world's most esteem street artists. Growing up in the 70's and 80's, the French artist was deeply inspired by popular culture of those decades. He adopted his pseudonym as an homage to the 1978 arcade game Space Invaders, and his pixelated practice extends the homage. After graduating from École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, he began his infamous street art project in 1998 by installing mosaic pieces resembling Space Invaders' pixelated villains throughout Paris. Invader immediately gained notoriety, and continued to "invade" the urban spaces around the world with mosaics of famous games and cartoon characters. To this day, he has thousands of mosaics in public spaces of major cities worldwide, as well as in the International Space Station orbiting the Earth, and under the ocean on a sculpture. As the artist evades the public eye and legal authorities, he brings this classic game of his childhood to life through artistic invasion.

"This is the most addictive game I've ever played."

Although the most iconic works of Invader's prolific career are ceramic tile mosaics of similar video game characters, each work is unique. Half Phantom is an example of the artist's innovative way of presenting a familiar motif with individuality. Along with Space Invaders, Pac-Man is one of the iconic of the first generation of arcade games, and its presence is abundant in Invader's oeuvre as well. The piece Half Phantom (Lot 36) features the villain of the Pac-Man game, but only the bottom half of the character. It is still instantaneously recognizable, and the abrupt end to the character adds a layer of humour and extra nostalgia to the work. It is reminiscent of a slow-loading image, a phenomenon common in the days of slow, dial-up internet.

The French artist is best-known for his tile mosaics, but he also created a line of studio works, Rubikcubism, a project that began in 2004. He uses the Rubik's Cube, another wildly popular retro game from the 70s, and utilizes its pixelated aesthetic to create works similar to his mosaics. The artist often appropriates a popular image by painstakingly manipulating the cube to show the colours he wants, and gluing them onto a backboard to construct the image. The final product heavily references the Pointillist movement as the principal image only reveals itself to viewers if they squint their eyes or view it from afar.

Rubik Bad (Lot 37) is from a series of Rubikcubism works where the artist recreated legendary album covers by rock stars such as Velvet Underground, David Bowie, The Cure, and in this example, Michael Jackson. Rubik Bad features Michael Jackson's seventh studio album Bad released in 1987. The album was the first to have five number-one singles on U.S. Billboard, and the musician's status as "King of Pop" was cemented in this period. Bad represents the glory of not just pop music but pop culture in the 80's, and this work by Invader delivers all the aspects of 1980s entertainment: the aesthetic, the music, and the games.

侵略者是世上最受人敬仰的街頭藝術家之一。這位法國藝術家成長於70、80年代，並深受當時流行文化的啟發。他以侵略者為名，目的是向1978年街機遊戲「太空侵略者」致敬，而作品中像素化的創作概念，更是進一步對遊戲獻上敬意。藝術家於巴黎法國美術學院畢業後，便在1998年開始進行「不當」的街頭藝術創作，他在整個巴黎的大小街頭上，以馬賽克拼湊出「太空侵略者」中的壞蛋角色，並將圖像像素化。侵略者隨即「蒙上惡名」，並且繼續以其遊戲及卡通角色拼湊成馬賽克圖像，「侵略」世界各地的城市空間。直到現在，侵略者已經在世界各地的城市公共空間留下了數以千計的馬賽克圖像，包括圍繞地球運行的國際太空站，還有海底雕塑。當這些街頭作品成功避開了大眾和法律機關的視線，藝術家便成功透過「藝術侵略」，將童年時的經典遊戲帶到現實生活之中。

「這是我玩過最無法自拔的遊戲。」

侵略者十分投入在他的藝術生涯，儘管他所創作的大部分作品都是以陶瓷磚馬賽克拼湊而成的遊戲機角色，但每件作品都帶有獨特面貌。作品《半個鬼魂》就是一例，展示出藝術家如何以創新的方式將為人熟識的圖像獨特化。除了「太空侵略者」外，「食鬼」（亦作「吃豆人」）也是第一代街機遊戲的經典角色，它亦頻頻在侵略者的作品中出現。作品《半個鬼魂》（拍品編號36）拼湊出「食鬼」遊戲中的壞蛋角色。雖然作品只展示了「食鬼」的下半身，但鮮明的角色特徵卻能讓人一眼辨識出「食鬼」，而斷開的圖像更讓作品增添幾分幽默感和懷舊氣色。斷開的圖像其實為模仿緩慢的圖像加載，這一現象在過往撥號上網的緩慢上線歲月是常見之事。

這位法國藝術家以其瓷磚馬賽克見稱，同時亦創作了一系列的工作室作品──Rubikcubism。這個系列從2004年開始創作，藝術家利用風行於70年代的懷舊遊戲魔術方塊作畫，皆因魔方的外觀有像素圖像般的美感，與侵略者的馬賽克作品有異曲同工之妙。藝術家往往會費煞思量地把魔方調校至適合的顏色位置，以拼湊出心目中的圖像，然後再以膠水把魔方固定於背板之上，從而建構畫作。最終的完成品完全參考了點彩畫派的技法，觀者可以在瞇著眼或遠觀的情況下，才能看到主題圖像。

《魯比克－飆》（拍品編號37）為「Rubikcubism」系列的作品之一，當中，藝術家重新創作出一系列搖滾巨星的傳奇專輯封面，包括地下絲絨、大衛‧鮑威、治療樂隊，此作品中的主角則為邁克爾‧傑克遜。作品以傑克遜於 1987年出版的第七張專輯《飆》為題。《飆》為首張擁有五首歌曲打入美國Billboard流行曲榜榜首的專輯，同時亦奠定了傑克遜其時的「流行天王」地位。《飆》不但代表了流行音樂的輝煌時期，還有80年代的流行文化，而侵略者這幅作品就表現出1980年代娛樂界的不同範疇：美學、音樂及遊戲。