Aladdin Sane (orange)

This signed screen print from 2014 is a limited edition of 65 from Invader’s Aladdin Sane series. It shows one of Invader’s famous Space Invader characters, through which the artist has reached world-fame, masked in the guise of singer David Bowie. Bowie is here referenced in his unarguably most famous representation, his Aladdin Sane album cover shot by Brian Duffy. The bright red and blue lightning bolt crossing the Space Invader’s bright orange face instantly identifies and pays homage to what became Bowie’s most iconic  representation, to the point that Aladdin Sane’s cover was named the ‘Mona Lisa’ of album covers.

The small print, offered in four different versions (Pinky, Blue, Yellow and Orange) with a variation on the base colour of the figure, demonstrates Invader’s engagement with modern icons, in a statement that will certainly remind the viewer of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn series or Keith Haring’s Icon series. Much like his predecessors, in these prints Invader coalesces together his interest for digital and pixelated aesthetics, which he takes as epitomes of the contemporary way of being in the world, and the world of the 1980s pop music.

An interesting and certainly unique series, the Aladdin Sane prints speak to Invader’s necessity to surprise the viewer with always new, unexpected artworks, leading the audience to ask themselves which popular icon will be next in Invader’s pixelated appropriations.