“I am so grateful for this man”, he says of Banksy in a soft Gallic voice, “ he has helped me so much recently his comment suggests a wise and respectful artist he has opened doors”, reveals Le Rat while referring to that now famous Banksy quote – Every time I think I’ve painted something slightly original I find out that Blek has done it as well only twenty years earlier! And he adds that Almost three decades after beginning these provocations “Le Rat” is finally receiving the recognition he deserves. Today, this silvery 58 year-old family man is still stenciling city walls, still transgressing the law with poetic images and urgent social comment. In the art world it is a well known fact that long before stencil supremo Banksy made the global A- list there was a humble Frenchman named Blek Le Rat. His stencil work is featured this month in a survey exhibition at Melbourne’s Metro Gallery. If you don' t have an invite for the show tonight you can always pop along to the London Graphic Centre in Covent Garden where Blek will also be signing copies of his book in-store on Thursday the 8th of May (1- 3pm).INPRESS | Street Press Article 2009 | Interview with Blek Le Ratīlek Le Rat lets the rat out of the proverbial with artist writer Paul Andrew. The private view/ book signing is tonight the 8th May and is invite only. The show will feature many new works as well as iconic images tracing the history of Blek’s career, along with a number of prints – available from the gallery on the night. To celebrate the book launch the Black Rat Gallery is staging the largest Blek exhibition to date. In recognition of this Thames & Hudson have published a beautifully produced retrospective book entitled, Blek Le Rat: Getting Through the Walls. This is essentially the blueprint street artists the world over are still reading from today. Blek has always used his art as both a democratic means of bringing the gallery walls to the people and to change the way we interact with the urban spaces around us.
Indeed, it was Blek’s silhouette stencil of a rat (an image Banksy was later to adopt for Bristol and London) as early as 1981 that broke away from the graffiti political slogans and injected it with a fresh new language of political art. Banksy is on record as saying that, “Every time I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek LeRat has done it as well.
Almost all of whom arrived a whole generation after Blek started hitting the streets of Paris back in the early eighties. Considered to be the father of stencil street art, Blek Le Rat (aka Xavier Prou) has had a profound influence on today’s current crop of street artists.
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