26 – Queensland Planner – Spring 2014 – Vol 54 No 3

Place

Medieval Space Invaders – Postcard from EuropeEve Vickerson MPIA

Europe’s traditional tourist draw card is the heritage of its built environment. Charming medieval laneways, majestic churches and crumbling ruins are what draw in the masses. Th e great art houses of the Louvre and the Prado beckon. However, in the new Europe, one of the oldest forms of self-expression is making a real comeback.

Some see it as vandalism, others as art but graffi ti continues to make an impression on the European landscape, albeit a controversial one. New forms of graffi ti

have emerged including the work of the street artist known as “Invader”. He makes tile mosaics of the aliens from the 1978 arcade game and fi xes them to walls across London, Paris, Tokyo, New York and Perth. After he “invades” a town, he publishes a map so that you can visit the “monuments” (http://www.space-invaders.com/gmap.html)

Th e photo in the Southern French medieval town of Saint-Paul de Vence shows an example of Invader’s work. I took the photo on a recent trip from Milan to

Madrid (via the South of France).

I fi nd it fi tting that the artist (or vandal if that is how you see it) chose to install a mosaic in Saint-Paul de Vence, considering it is a town that has been keenly sought after by artists since the early 1900s. Marc Chagall is buried in the small, picturesque cemetery on the edge of town. Th ere is a chapel designed by Matisse. Both of these artists produced controversial works in their day but are now accepted legends of the art world.

Saint-Paul de Vence

Queensland Planner – Spring 2014 – Vol 54 No 3 – 27

Place

Although the space invader maps are self-published, I received a tourist map in Granada, Spain, that not only included the famous historical monuments around town but also published the location of celebrated graffi ti works, particularly those by the local artist known as “El Niño de las Pinturas”. He has a signature style that can be seen in the photos below.

Whether you call it street art or graffi ti, it certainly is adding visual interest to the built form and has also sparked the interest of the tourism industry.

The works of “El Niño de las Pinturas”