French artist Blek le Rat, often described as the father of stencil graffiti and to many the godfather of street art, was recently in the US invited by Brian Greif of 2:32AM Projects who curated the tour that brought the artist and his work to cities like Nashville, Waco, Austin, and Houston.
Despite being France’s graffiti art pioneer (he says he was the second to make street art in Paris, after Zloty Kamien), he is most famous for being the artist whose style Banksy “stole”. Blek’s spray-painted stencils of rats first appeared on the banks of Seine when Banksy still was a child. In his unauthorised biography Banksy said: “Every time I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek le Rat has done it as well, only 20 years earlier.”
I an interview by the organisers Blek makes a recount of the trip and his experience along the way. He says: “Everything started during a conversation with Brian Greif from 2:32 AM Projects. I was working with Brian on a gallery exhibit in San Francisco last year. I told him I wanted to leave my mark across the US for many personal reasons.” He particularly liked the idea of visiting cities where people weren’t familiar with Street Art.
In Nashville he painted at the Montgomery Bell Academy and had the opportunity to interact with the students, who, according to the artist, seemed a little surprised that a 67 years old man is involved in Street Art and painting on walls. He wanted to do something at the school that connected the students to European culture, and painted therefore f
amous authors, philosophers and artists at the school; Picasso, Victor Hugo, Socrates, spending several days in the classroom with the students, teaching them the art of stenciling. An experience Blek recalls as very rewarding.
When asked about the reason why he decided to paint in cities likeWaco, Austin and Houston Texas instead of visiting the usual big metropolis, he answers that it was simply more rewarding, the response from the public amazed him, there were crowds at every mural location and people were people genuinely curious about him and his work. As he explains:
“It’s more interesting and important now for a street artist to try to reach people who don’t have access to the contemporary culture. Today most of street artists post on FB or Instagram and they touch hundreds of thousand people. I think its time now to go back to the real sources of street art by painting real walls in real cities and not just the major cities around the world. We need to touch people by painting walls in cities that have not experienced this movement.”
One of Blek’s dream would be to leave his mark in every city in the US and paint in cities like Omaha, Kansas City, Albuquerque, Columbus, St Louis, or any other city that would invite him.
Blek le Rat born Xavier Prou in 1952 is a French stencil artist. He was one of the first graffiti artists in Paris, and has been described as the Father of stencil graffiti.
Blek has been adorning the streets of Paris with his hugely original and intelligent artwork since the early eighties, and he has been a massive influence on today’s graffiti and guerrilla art movements. He started decorating the streets of Paris in 1981 with a rat stencil, hoping to create an invasion of rats in the city. He was inspired to created this stencil after seeing the graffiti in New York in the 70’s, but he didn’t just want to copy the American style, he wanted to create a style that suited Paris and so he chose the stencil as he saw this something very Latin.
After the rats he moved onto using life sizes portraits. The fist of these was an old man wearing glasses and screaming. Blek has now painted on walls all over the world and has influenced a whole generation of street artists. He was a pioneer of stencil graffiti and one of the first artist to move to using a symbol rather than his name as his tag. Blek Le Rat created his mane from a cartoon strip he used to read as a child ‘Blek le Rock’. He changed the ‘Le Rock’ to ‘Le Rat’ because his first stencil was a rat and because you can find art in rat. He no longer paints on walls after in 1991 he was tried for ten years worth of graffiti and had to pay substantial fines, and would face jail if caught again. He continues to produce work, but now it is in the form of posters rather than painting directly on walls. Blek Le Rat lives in an abandoned 10th Century castle somewhere in France with his wife and teenage son.
Blek Le Rat: website | facebook | instagram
Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
