Name: Rubik Space
Brand: Invader
Rating: 4.9 (225 reviews)

Meaning & Analysis

This signed screen print from 2005 is a limited edition of 100 from Invader’s Rubikcubism series. The vertical print shows a rectangular grid made of eight vertical rows and eleven horizontal rows, for a total of 88 coloured squares that repeat the palette of six colours of the famous Rubik Cubes. On the lower part of the print, mimetically disguised, Invader collocates one of his Space Invader characters, made up of the white squares.

Made in 2005, this print is a testament to Invader’s earliest experiments with the colourful and vivacious world of Rubik Cubes when the artist was at the start of his new stylistic developments. In the print, the intricacy that Invader will achieve in his following works (see, for instance, Clockwork Orange or The Shining) is still at its earliest stages, and the narrative elements of his following works are absent.

Nevertheless, the print is perhaps one of Invader’s most interesting works, in so long as it coalesces together the colourful vocabulary of the Rubik Cubes, which allow him to play with the theme of pixelation that he turned into his signature, and the digitalised character of the Space Invaders, which have become emblematic of his oeuvre. Here, the digital quality and 8-bit aesthetic of Invader’s works (see for instance Repetition, Variation, Evolution) is rendered through the juxtaposition of the white squares.

Despite the simple appearance, this print is a unique piece in Invader’s production, one that brings together his two most recognised projects and evidences the thematic and stylistic continuity between his Space Invaders and the Rubikcubes.