Blek Le Rat (Xavier Prou) was born in Paris in 1951. He is a grand master of street art, and considered by many to be the originator of the life-sized stencil, as well as the first to transform stencil from basic lettering into pictorial art. He was first exposed to graffiti in 1971 in New York, but didn’t start making his own until ten years later in Paris. Inspired by a stenciled portrait he saw of Mussolini amongst some WWII ruins during a trip to Italy, he created a stencil of a life size silhouette of a rat running along the streets, “the only free animal in the city”, one which “spreads the plague everywhere, just like street art”. Today the rise of street art has been seen internationally, gaining a fame and importance that many of its first followers could have never expected. Cities all over the world are happy hosts to its vibrant and dynamic appeal. Thirty years ago, when Blek le Rat first started to paint his local streets, this was certainly not the case.
Unaware of the eventual prominence his style would gain and motivated by the idea of using art to spread ideas of social consciousness, Blek’s first major move was the flooding of Paris with his signature piece, the silhouette of a rat. He started with rat stencils to emphasize his new name, which was a play on well-known 1960s comic character Blek le Roc (“rat is also an anagram of art”), but also because there was something ratty about an artist who scuttles around under the cover of darkness. These vermin spread from the subways of the Périphérique to alleyways of Montmartre and could be seen all throughout the city and soon thereafter, in surrounding cities as well. The travelling plague was a warning and also a call to awareness- rats are one of the last wild animals that thrive in the city, and even though they may not be seen rest assured – the city is filled with them. “It is about uprising, a signal of rebellion. It’s our revolution,” Blek once explained in an interview.
Blek recognized the great ability of street art to address the populace in ways other art could not. Through stencils often centered on social observation, Blek involved his viewers in a guerrilla war against complacency and conformity, highlighting the strength of the individual and inspiring a reflection upon the status quo. The guerrilla art we are familiar with now has much to thank Blek le Rat for, a point driven home with impact when looking at the work of notorious British-graffiti artist Banksy, whose style is not only based on that of Blek but whose subject matter (including soldiers, rebels and even rats taking over the streets) is inarguably influenced by Blek as well. Banksy has acknowledged Le Rat’s influence by stating “every time I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek Le Rat has done it as well, only twenty years earlier”. The Sunday Times went so far as to call Le Rat “the man who gave birth to Banksy”. This tribute gave a fresh start to Blek le Rat’s career and, today, the world honors the pioneer he was in stencil, which is an indisputable chapter of contemporary Street Art.
