Alias: Invader. Space Invader!

The great moment came. The moment of invading this website, too. As it is impossible to not come across him in the city, either this blog couldn't stay without a post about him. The French street artist Invader (his website, blog or Wikipedia article), who pastes up his mosaic works around the world, become one of the best well known urban-street-artist. His characters that are inspired by the arcade game Space Invaders, are made up from little mosaic pieces, like the characters are made up from pixels. 

There's a nice and clear FAQ-like interview on his website (although it's from 2008), explaining shortly the general idea of the Invader's actions and activities within the cities. I will paste a few answers here, the most essential to understand his work.

Basically, I guess around 1000 or more little invaders-mosaics are pasted all around Paris already. I noticed that the work of Invader periodically undergoes some metamorphosis. In the beginning of his work - early 90's, they were more simple, "pixelated" and very alike invaders from the games. However, with the time they have started to relate much more to the surrounding. For example picture below shows the mosaic with the paint roller, because the name of the street is "Impasse des peintres". After, another and another, let's say, "species" were produced.

Quote from Invader's website: "How many people are involved? Just me. In the eight years (as the interview is from 2008 - it's been 13 years already) I've been working on this project, I've traveled to 35 cities on all five continents with the sole intention of "invading" them! Having said that, people have sent me photos of Space Invaders in towns I've never set foot in! I see it as a positive thing, a kind of tribute."

Quote from Invader's website: "What's the Space Invaders project about? The idea is to "invade" cities all over the world with characters inspired by first-generation arcade games, and especially the now classic Space Invaders.[...]"

Quote from Invader's website: "What made you choose Space Invaders as the main character for the project? Lots of reasons. I see them as a symbol of our era and the birth of modern technology, with video games, computers, the Internet, mobile phones, hackers and viruses. And "space invader" is a pretty good definition of what I'm doing... invading spaces!"

Mosaic below looks like a "very special edition". Nothing strange if we know that it's pasted/cemented up in the Rue de Candie street, so one of the most popular, strategic and artistic-busy spot in Paris.

The Gallery of Unknown Artists (part I - paste-up,poster)

I spent quite a lot of time on fumbling in the web, viewing different blogs, webpages, searching using internet photo's engines, etc... However, the artists' names of the works presented below still remain unknown (at least for me and many other people, too). If somebody, whilst viewing this blog, will have any idea which work belongs to which artist, I will be glad to have your comments, hints or messages with those information! 

To keep some order, The Gallery of Unknown Artists (part I), will contain just poster/paste-up works. In the next parts I will present: stencil, stickers and mosaics works.

First picture presents the "couple" holding in their hands little baby (newborn, I guess, though somehow not happy at all about coming to this world). Pretty big piece of street art, near somebody's door (maybe artist's apartment?). 

Au fait, bienvenue Lucie! - By the way, welcome Lucie!

The smaller faces of the same artist are pasted up on the street lamps, that belong to the big stairs we can find in Montmartre, near SacreCoeur basilica.

 The street lamps - artist unknown

The street lamps - artist unknown

The little poster presenting the characters from Little Red Riding Hood made on me a strange impression. Girl without a face and the wolf somehow becoming a part of her...What is written over it:: "Loups & Vautour" - Wolves & Vultures. Second line is hard to understand, as it's not French anymore..."Brako un corp bo" (?). Google Translate says it's Galician language and translates it like "Brake a body good" (?!?). Of course some other person, not the artist, has written that. 

Little Red Riding Hood - artist unknown

The one below simple made me big smile. For a while, I wasn't considering it as a street art at all, until I found exactly the same poster pasted up in another place. No tagline, no signature, completely anonymous (and pasted high enough for the others to not write over it). "Wanna some fruits?"or "I've got ALL the fruits you might want"...

Some fruits, maybe? - artist unknown

A parrot in a cage (in fact behind the window's bars). I guess there was a signature in the right bottom of the poster, but somebody was trying to tear it up and it has disappeared. 

Parrot - artist unknown

One of my favorite paste-up. Little boy who mimics somebody. I had a few ideas about the artist, but in the end it turned out that they were all wrong. Any ideas?

Mimicking boy - artist unknown

The last presented piece of street art is very unique in it's beauty. Piece of newspaper cut out more less along the contours of the head, which looks like a head of an ancient sculpture. It's like color-graded stencil art painted on the newspaper and then glued to the wall. I wonder if picking up an appropriate newspaper was of any importance. For example the main title: "Ce genre de challenges" means: "Such challenges". What more passes through my head is, that maybe artist shows something ancient mixed with something modern? Or maybe that we lost the classical, ancient values which should shape the presence? Who knows if we don't even know the artist's name. Such pity!

Ancient face on the newspaper - artist unknown

"500 shades of Gregos"

Faces, faces, everywhere...Smiling, with a tongue out, giving a kiss or simply "existing" on the Parisians walls, all of them are the work of Gregos. On his website we can find information saying: French street artist, who in the late 80s and early 90s was using Graffiti as his way of expression. After years of experience with ART, Gregos has developed his own 3d concepts, involving different methods of molding and sculpting, to create those faces that replicate his very own one.

He says: "Each face is a sort of self-portrait of the day to express his humors, his past, present, and future, everything that makes Gregos...As of today, more than 500 (!!!) faces have beed installed, in Paris mostly, but also in other towns of France and of the world."

What left after one of the faces...

This kind of background for Gregos' face is a sort of exception. Maybe he didnt't want people to forget that he is an active painter as well? In addition, it creates a really nice composition. 

On of the most popular works of Gregos, which we can find in Montmartre. Two faces - super flowers. I find it very positive.

Gregos in Montmartre, Paris - an unique example of his work

Kiss, kiss! Kissing mood apparently.

Kiss from Gregos!

The last photo shows, how Gregos interacts with road signs. Here the hands are "holding" the panel with a caption saying: "No bans" or "Without bans". This kind of urban game using road signs initiated previously Clet Abraham (http://www.paristreetart.com/2013/03/road-signs-street-art-and-other-plates.html). But as of using the moldings plastered on it, Gregos is the first one, because Clet bases just on stickers. 

Sans interdits - Without bans