Meaning & Analysis

Aladdin Sane (Gold) is a signed screen print by the artist Invader, produced in 2014. It is from a limited edition run of 30 prints, from the Aladdin Sane series. It portrays singer David Bowie’s in his Aladdin Sane album cover, gestured through the red and blue lightning bolt on a gold background, in a pixelated and digitalised manner typical of Invader’s artistic project.

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David 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 five 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.