Michelle Kuo on Invader

Nice piece by Michelle Kuo about Invader in the January 2007 issue of Artforum(See p.57).

Notes:

"Vandalism, then, emerges as a mode of public address--as one of the last remaining collective activitioes taking place in urban space."

"Of course, what could be closer to the pervasive drift of global consumerism than a ubiquitous logo liek Invaders? Graffiti meets branding in a partnership that is by now familiar: Increasingly, urban art's yen for self-multiplication has transitioned from hand painted signage to the easily reproduced stencil or sticker. The collaborative procedures of the postwar avant-garde return as viral marketing."

"Like this absurd sortie [refering to the potentially endless warfare of Space Invaders], Invaders project entails a bombardment without limit, an occupation without real conquest."

"The grids resemble less the gestural script of graf writer than the "monocromes" resulting from police painting over graffiti itself." (Sydney artist, Mickie Quick, worked with this idea directly in his piece at Mays last year.)