Critical Review
Pronto Intervento (red) Roma was made by French street artist Invader in 2010. The signed screen print comes in an edition of 30 and shows a red and white sticker, like those found all over the Italian capital city, Rome, demanding urgent assistance. In Italian, the sticker says ‘pronto intervento’ (rapid response) in large white capitals. The sticker features an alien composed of red pixels. The use of pixels resonates with the 8-bit visual register of arcade games and the alien itself is a character from the popular arcade game, Space Invaders, which was created by Taito in 1978.
At the top of the sticker, Invader writes ‘Romano Invasioni’ (Invasion of Rome). The title refers to Invader’s elaborate installation project, the Space Invaders project, which involved the artist travelling to cities all over the world to install mosaics of aliens onto the walls of the cities he visited. Invader referred to his artistic endeavours as ‘invasions’ and this print is referring to the artist’s work installing mosaics of aliens all over Rome. The print can be seen alongside Invasion Di Roma (2010), an offset lithograph in colours in which Invader details where in Rome his mosaic aliens can be found.
Pronto Intervento (red) Roma was published by Invader for the exhibition Roma 2010 and Other Curiosities at the Wunderkammern contemporary art gallery in Roma, Italy.
