The Lazarides gallery has had a pretty strong history of  excellent exhibitions from some of the most in demand artists working today. Rathbone place is the swanky new space from the ever expanding Lazarides “brand” and having missed their first show from Vhils last month (which looked amazing) i was pretty keen to check out their latest offering “Low Fidelity” from the french mosaic street artist Invader.

On entering the premises you’ll be given a show flyer which states on it “For A Better View Use Your Cellphone“. You’ll notice that the pieces displayed just look like a collection of random coloured squares, with the images nearly impossible to make out with the naked eye, but when you look at the pieces through your tiny mobile phone screen all the “pixels” of the pieces are squashed together and thus creating the finished piece. At this show Invader has cleverly recreated some of the most iconic album covers in history using the different coloured squares on hundreds of Rubix cubes (albums included 1969 by the Velvet Underground, The best of the Doors, Bad by Michel Jackson, Boys Don’t Cry by the Cure, Country life by Roxy Music and Diamond Dogs by David Bowie).

Now just think about the artists work process for a second, that means that each side on each Rubix cube (and there are hundreds) in any one piece had to have the specific colours in the specific order for the image to work. Each piece must have taken absolutely ages to complete but the finished effect is both stunning and utter genius.

If your lucky enough to own an i-phone their were specially designed pieces for you too. On the far side of the gallery were three small pieces that looked like blank cross word puzzles. On the walls next to these crosswords was a code that when put into your i-phone lets you unscramble the pieces. Here comes the clever bit, when you download the code  and view the crosswords through your newly updated i-phone screen and you’ll find that the crossword has been filled in with “secret messages”. I have no idea how this works but it’s just incredible.

The show features 27 new pieces in total, as well as the pixel masterpieces there is also a selection of hand drawn work and sculptures on display. the Hand Draw editions shown (created by shading in the squares on graph paper, of course) will be available for purchase from the Lazarides shop on Greek Street shortly after the exhibition finishes.  Simple pieces but again, very clever.

The sculptures on display came in the form of giant Rubix cubes and huge coloured blocks. Impressive on their first view but unremarkable compared to the rest of the work on display, and that says a lot about just how great this show was.

Low Fidelity by Invader is undoubtedly the best exhibition of the year so far and from an artist who up until now i haven’t really cared for. Due to his ability to portray his ideas using a number of different mediums shown here this will surly be the exhibition of his career, proving to the critics that he is one of the most imaginative and skilled street artists working today.

Exhibition rating: 10 out of 10