Back to Top

Space Invaders Under Attack

August 10, 2005

Will at SixSquare.com writes about the recent wholesale thefts of Space Invaders pieces in Los Angeles. He writes movingly of becoming obsessed with and attached to a particular artist’s creation — and then being shocked and hurt by the art’s sudden destruction — in a way that I strongly identified with. One of the great things about being a street art hunter is the way you can be constantly surprised by your city. Invisible strangers plant presents for no one, and you get to stumble across these gifts, witness them, and leave them behind for others to discover too.
Anyway, the story was picked up by art.blogging.la, where the Invader himself chimed in:

STOP THE SLAUGHTER!
I’ve just learned that in the last few weeks many of the space invaders in the streets of Los Angeles have been removed. I have good reason to think that this is the work of an individual and not done by the city. I would like to ask the person who is doing this to stop for two main reasons :
1– that is very selfish act to steal art that is supposed to be free and for everybody.
2- that is ridiculous. The tiles are not signed then they have no value. You can go and buy some in any tiles shop (like “Opiocolor” in beverly hills where I bought them ) they will be the same but not broken.

This obviously harkens back to the theft/destruction of Revs’ sculptures this spring. A related story: Once I was working with an artist friend and a bypasser stopped and told us that she was an art collector, and regularly went around removing art from the street and taking it home — in order to “preserve” it — and had taken down a few of my friend’s pieces. I knew people did this, but I was horrified anyway. I wanted to say: We put art up, and you take it down. That makes us enemies, not friends.
Read the whole article article on the Invader thefts here. Found via art.blogging.la, via Wooster. Check out Invader’s site, and photos of him at work here. Photo at top from SixSquare.

Subjects

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

3 comments on “Space Invaders Under Attack”

As the other designer behind the “Andre The Giant Has A Posse” experiment and GIANT movement, I have to disagree. Street art is fair game. What goes up, must come down. Any good artist is consistently rearranging environment to suit taste. That’s the game.

More from the Blog

Seattle’s International Working Women’s Day for Palestine and Beyond

Seattle’s International Working Women’s Day for Palestine and Beyond

March 12, 2024

“We stand in solidarity with our Palestinian siblings in Gaza and those among our community who are directly and indirectly affected by the current war and genocide by the Israeli settler-colonial regime. Passive observation of the horrors of bombings, genocide, and prolonged apartheid is not our way. We must rise and firmly proclaim that Palestinian Liberation is a Feminist Imperative.” – Feminists for Jina Seattle

More from the Shop