Do you think Space Invader and Banksy are staying at the same hotel? The French street artist is in town for a residency of his own (and he just screened his film here, too). Invader's pieces started turning up on Lower East Side buildings this week, and presumably his porcelain tiles will be popping up elsewhere, though he won't say how long he's in town for. In an interview with Newsweek he said as much, and also talked a little about the appeal of NYC to street artists:
"New York is the Mecca of Art in general and street art in particular. This is my fifth invasion wave in the city, which I started invading in 1999 at the very start of my project 'invasion of the world,' but it is so huge and dense that I could come a hundred times without being satisfied. New York would need as many space invaders as Paris, which counts more than 1,000 of them."
The street artist (who hides his identity like Banksy) was also in the film Exit Through The Gift Shop, as his cousin is Thierry Guetta, a.k.a. Mr. Brainwash. You can follow along on Instagram, where his first post from New York is of a piece in Chinatown:
