“It’s the same to me,” the artist says about creating for the gallery versus the street. “In both cases my brain is focused on creating an artwork with the same amount of dedication. The difference is that one will end up in the street, and the other one in a gallery.”
Intent and context are fundamentally altered when any street artist moves “into the white cube.” The rebellious nature of the genre is neutered and conversation with the environment, silenced. It’s why Invader spends so much time deciding on a location when he performs what he calls “urban acupuncture,” like a pixelated portrait of The Dude, a bowler and middle-aged slacker from the classic film, The Big Lebowski, placed on the wall of a Koreatown bowling alley. It’s also why he attempted to launch one of his invaders into space on board a weather balloon, as documented in his 2012 film, Art4Space.