PARIS (AP) — The mystery French street artist known only as “Invader” has struck Paris again — this time to celebrate the Olympics.
Invader has been cementing his quirky mosaics to Paris walls since the 1990s, usually at night and without permission. He's become France’s most international, invasive and intriguing contemporary street artist. His works dot all corners of the City of Light and his fans have a lot of fun hunting them down.
And now there's a new, Olympic-themed one for them to find.
Invader cemented it to a wall on one of the River Seine's embankments sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday. Using tiles to create the mosaic, it shows one of his signature Space Invader figures running. The work’s colors evoke the shades of blue that Paris Games organizers have used to decorate the city for the Olympics.
A representative for artist — who, like him, maintains anonymity — said by email to The Associated Press that “Invader told me to say that he wanted to celebrate the Olympics in Paris with this mosaic. The space invader is running and he wears some of the colors of the Olympics signage.”
The artist's admirers can download his app, called “Flash Invaders,” and then use it to take photos of any of his works that they find.
When they do, the app awards them points. The more works they find and “flash,” the more points they get.
It’s addictive: The app has nearly 400,000 players.
The new mosaic is the 1,512th that Invader has glued up in Paris. Players get 50 points when they flash it with his app. Since the first catalogued mosaic of a blue Space Invader went up on a Paris street in 1998, numbered PA_01, Invader has colonized the world. There are now more than 4,000 of his mosaics in cities and towns on all continents except Antartica.
On Instagram, the artist posted a photo Wednesday of the new work and the words “Special Olympic Games Paris 2024,” with a jogger running past.
That and a video post by the artist alerted admirers that there was a new work for them to find.
A small group of them quickly tracked it down, took its photo with the app, got their points, and spent time together admiring the work.
Super fan André Lavigne, a 64-year-old retired chemical engineer, was among the first to find and flash it. He is currently ranked in the top 100 players on the app, having tracked down 2,718 of the artist's works in France and overseas.
In just the first few hours, the work was already generated buzz.
“I’ve seen many people coming and flashing and asking, ‘It’s a new one?’ And I say, ‘Yes, it has been put (up) last night.’ (They reply) ‘Oh, well, that’s extraordinary,” Lavigne said.
Another admirer, Gema Calero, rolled up on her bike and celebrated with a fist pump when she got her 50 points.
“It’s all fresh, it still smells of glue," she said.
She says searching high and low across Paris for the works has taught her lots about the city and the value of looking around.
“It allows you to look at life differently. You hunt around. You look up a little bit. Because normally when we walk we look at what’s in front of us," she said. "It’s super.”
Like Banksy, the British street artist he is sometimes likened to, Invader is elusive, fiercely protective of his anonymity and operating on the margins of illegality. He comes, glues, and disappears into the night, leaving behind his signature pixelated mosaics made mostly with small ceramic and glass tiles.
Most resemble the aliens from the Space Invaders arcade game. Others are wonderfully elaborate, such as still lives of fruit or, in New York, portraits of Lou Reed and Andy Warhol. Some reference pop culture — Spiderman, Star Wars, Bugs Bunny, Ninja Turtles, pizza and the like.
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
A cyclist rides in front of an Olympic-themed new mosaic by the mysterious French street artist known only by the name Invader, Wednesday Aug. 7, 2024, on the banks of the Seine River, during the 2004 Summer Olympics, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/John Leicester)
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s upper house of parliament on Wednesday endorsed a bill banning adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries where gender transitioning is legal.
The Federation Council also approved bills that outlaw the spread of material that encourages people not to have children.
The bills, which have previously been approved by the lower house, will now go to President Vladimir Putin for signing into law. They follow a series of laws that have suppressed sexual minorities and bolstered longstanding conventional values.
Lower house speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, who was among the new bill's authors, noted that “it is extremely important to eliminate possible dangers in the form of gender reassignment that adopted children may face in these countries.”
The adoption ban would apply to at least 15 countries, most of them in Europe as well as in Australia, Argentina and Canada. Adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens was banned in 2012.
Other bills approved by lawmakers on Wednesday outlaw what is described as propaganda for remaining child-free and impose fines of up to 5 million rubles (about $50,000). Its proponents contended that public arguments against having children are part of purported Western efforts to weaken Russia by encouraging population decline.
Putin and other top officials in recent years have increasingly called for observing so-called traditional values as a counter to Western liberalism. As Russia’s population declines, Putin has made statements advocating large families and last year urged women to have as many as eight children.
Russia last year banned gender-transition medical procedures and its Supreme Court declared the LGBTQ+ “movement” to be extremist.
In 2022, Putin signed a law prohibiting the distribution of LGBTQ+ information to people of all ages, expanding a ban issued in 2013 on disseminating the material to minors.
Since he sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin leader has repeatedly characterized the West as “satanic” and accused it of trying to undermine Russia by exporting liberal ideologies.
Independent journalists, critics, activists and opposition figures in Russia have come under increasing pressure from the government in recent years, intensifying significantly amid the conflict in Ukraine. Hundreds of nongovernmental groups and individuals have been designated as a “foreign agent” — a label that implies additional government scrutiny and carries strong pejorative connotations.
On Wednesday, the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, gave preliminary approval to a bill that would ban those who have been designated “foreign agents” from accessing their incomes. The measure would freeze all their Russia-generated income on special accounts and would only allow them access to the funds if their “foreign agent” status is revoked.
Volodin, the lower house speaker, has said that the proposed legislation was aimed at preventing “the enrichment of traitors to the motherland at citizens' expense.”
In this photo released by the Federation Council of The Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Press Service, lawmakers of Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation listen to the national anthem prior to a session in Moscow, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (The Federation Council of The Federal Assembly of The Russian Federation Press Service via AP)
In this photo released by the Federation Council of The Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Press Service, lawmakers of Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation listen to the national anthem prior to a session in Moscow, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (The Federation Council of The Federal Assembly of The Russian Federation Press Service via AP)
In this photo released by the Federation Council of The Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Press Service, lawmakers of Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation listen to the national anthem prior to a session in Moscow, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (The Federation Council of The Federal Assembly of The Russian Federation Press Service via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to New People party's leader Alexey Nechaev during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
