France’s capital may be the world renowned for the invaluable pieces of art that reside in such museums as the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay, but it is also home to some of the most exciting street art in Europe. One of the first artist who started decorating the streets of the City of Light was legendary graffiti artist Blek le Rat who has inspired generations of graffiti artists across the globe. The true pioneer of street art, he is often cited as a major influence of artists like Banksy, Space Invader, Shepard Fairey, and Icy and Sot. Through his work in his hometown, the artist established a style of urban art that rapidly spread throughout the continent and beyond.
The father of stencil graffiti, Xavier Prou was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, a commune in the western suburbs of Paris in 1951. He studied fine art and architecture at the prestigious École Des Beaux Arts in Paris, graduating in 1982. Before his graduation, Prou visited New York and developed a fascination with the city’s street art. Inspired by the NYC graffiti, he returned to France and began his artistic career in 1981 by painting stencils of rats. What he did that no one artist in France had was the utilization of pre-stenciled posters and images allowing the application of paint to be a lot speedier, mostly because he didn’t want to stay a long time on the streets because of the police. His black painted rats which began to appear on the street walls of the city would mark the beginning of the transformation of Paris’s visual landscape and identity. His pseudonym, Blek le Rat, originates from a childhood cartoon “Blek le Roc”, using “rat” as an anagram for “art” because, for him, the rats symbolized both freedom and the spread of art throughout the city as an invasion.
In the early 80s, American artist Richard Hambleton came to Paris and brought his work over from the US. By that time, Blek was already making rats, but when he saw Hambleton’s large shadow human figures, he got the idea of making bigger pieces, so he soon began doing larger works, as well as self-portraits. Today, Blek is credited as the first to transform stencil from basic lettering into imagery, and the one to invent the life-sized stencils. He creates most of his stencils by hand, crafting each to perfection to allow for the best detail possible upon application, and works mainly in black and white.
Ten years after he made his first piece, Blek le Rat was eventually discovered and caught by the French authorities. He was charged and fined for stenciling his own version of Caravaggio’s Madonna and Child onto a wall in Paris. This image is Blek le Rat’s oldest remaining artwork, and it depicts a woman called Sybille. Blek le Rat had fallen in love with Sybille and decided to proclaim his feelings to her by spray painting her image while interpreting Caravaggio’s notorious piece. Luckily, this love story has a happy ending, as Sybille and Prou are now married and have a son.
Over the years, it seems that the subject of Blek’s depictions has changed a bit – he is more focused on questions that regard social consciousness, politics, and environmental problems. He creates socially engaged artworks, intended to bring attention to global problems, often depicting marginalized individuals opposed to large oppressive groups. He has also been noted for his series of images of homeless people, begun in 2006, which depict them standing, sitting or laying on sidewalks, in attempts to bring attention to what he views as a global problem, to provoke thoughts, and even actions. Popular opinion believes that Banksy was greatly influenced by the work of Blek le Rat, which shares a similar style.
With the impressive career that spans over three decades, Blek le Rat continues to influence many street artists and to amaze us all to this day. He remains one of the most referenced artists by other artists, and his contribution to the movement is invaluable. In the past decade Blek’s popularity has become more mainstream and in 2006, Blek showed his works in London’s Leonard Street Gallery. Since then, his oeuvre has been included in numerous individual and collective shows in galleries across the globe. That doesn’t mean he has stopped the street art, his graffiti work has continued to appear throughout the world.
The French artist is represented by Vertical Gallery in London; Ministry of Walls, Cologne; Hang-Up Gallery, London; 44309 Street//art Gallery, Dortmund; Wunderkammern, Rome; Wunderkammern, Milan; Jonathan Levine Gallery, NY; and Artsuggest.com.
Featured image: Blek le Rat – portrait, photo credits Artfield Galleries
All images copyright © the artist
Year | Exhibition Title | Museum/Gallery | Solo/Group |
---|---|---|---|
2016 | Propaganda | Wunderkammern, Milan, Italy | Solo |
2015 | Oh, The Places We Have Been: Rediscovering the Past | Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York City, NY | Group |
2015 | Sleeping Beauty | Magda Danysz Gallery, Paris | Group |
2014 | Escaping Paris, Blek Le Rat, Quin Arts program | Quin hotel, New York City | Solo |
2013 | Ignorance is Bliss | Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York City, NY | Solo |
2013 | America's Finest (and Others) | Belgrave Gallery St Ives, St. Ives, Cornwall, England | Group |
2012 | Blek le Rat | Opera Gallery, London, England | Solo |
2012 | Graff the Peace! | Opera Gallery, Paris | Group |
2012 | Off The Wall: Street Art | Contemporary Wing, Washington, DC | Group |
2012 | Art & Toys – Collection Selim Varol | me Collectors Room Berlin, Berlin | Group |
2012 | Black´n White | Galerie Kasten, Mannheim | Group |
2012 | Streets of the World | Opera Gallery, New York City, NY | Group |
2012 | Look Closer | Warrington Museum and Art Gallery, Warrington | Group |
2011 | Paris Forever 100th exhibition of the gallery | Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris | Group |
2011 | Late To Dinner | Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art, Culver City, CA | Group |
2011 | Outside - Urban Street Group Exhibition | 34FineArt, Cape Town | Group |
2011 | Street Art - Contemporary Prints | Galerie Kasten, Mannheim | Group |
2011 | Urban Art Show 2011 | Belgrave Gallery St Ives, St. Ives, Cornwall, England | Group |
2011 | Shadows and reflections | Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris | Group |
2010 | Winter Group Show | White Walls Gallery, San Francisco, CA | Group |
2010 | Never Judge...? | Stolenspace Gallery, London, England | Group |
2010 | Street and Studio - Von Basquiat bis Séripop | Kunsthalle Wien (Museumsquartier), Vienna | Group |
2010 | Street Smarts | Affirmation Arts, New York City, NY | Group |
2010 | Fourth Element II | The Watermill, Aberfeldy, Perthshire, Scotland | Group |
2010 | Blek le Rat & Above | White Walls Gallery, San Francisco, CA | Group |
2010 | Girls, Girls, Girls | Signal Gallery, London, England | Group |
2010 | Five Year Anniversary | Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York City, NY | Group |
2010 | Wreck the Walls | Subliminal Projects, Los Angeles | Group |
2010 | Friends with Knives | Crewest Gallery, Los Angeles | Group |
2010 | Faces in the Mirror by Blek le Rat & Transitions by ABOVE | White Walls Gallery, San Francisco | Group |
2010 | Looking East | Yves Laroche Galerie d'art, Montreal, QC, Canada | Group |
2009 | From Style Writing to Art (Part 2 - Shanghai) | 18Gallery Shanghai - Bund18, Shanghai | Group |
2009 | 108 Christmas Exhibition - Little Pictures – Great Art | 108 Fineart, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England | Group |
2009 | The Northern Art Fair | 108 Fineart, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England | Group |
2009 | Installation Five | Anno Domini, San Jose, CA | Group |
2009 | With You I Want to Live: Gordon Locksley & George T. Shea Collection | Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, FL | Group |
2009 | Blue Print For Space for Art Basel 2009 | Art Center / South Florida, Miami Beach | Group |
2009 | From style writing to art | Galerie Magda Danysz , PARIS | Group |
2009 | Scion's Installation 5 National Art Tour | Scion Installation LA Gallery, Culver City | Group |
2009 | Whole in the Wall | Helenbeck Gallery New York, New York | Group |
2009 | Scion Installation Five - Self: Portrait | The Showroom NYC, New York | Group |
2008 | Paris-New York, New York-Paris | Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York City, NY | Solo |
2008 | Blek Le Rat // Life Before Banksy... | KunstTachometer, Palma de Mallorca | Solo |
2008 | Off the Wall – From Vandalism to Urban Art | Wilde Gallery, Berlin | Group |
2008 | Apocalyptic colors | Galerie Gabriele Senn, Vienna | Group |
2008 | The Cans Festival | The Cans Festival, London, England | Group |
2008 | Titanium Expose | Fecal Face Dot Gallery, San Francisco | Group |
2008 | Scion Presents: Installation 5 Art Tour - Detroit | CPop Gallery, Detroit | Group |
2008 | Blek Le Rat Exhibition | Black Rat Gallery, London, UK | Solo |
2007 | The Streets Of Europe | Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York City, NY | Group |
2007 | Behind the Seen | Ad Hoc Art, Brooklyn | Group |
2006 | Wooster On Spring | 11 Spring Street – New York City, New York | Group |
2002 | Blek Was Here | Urban Art Gallery, Berlin | Group |
2002 | Untitled | Kokerei, Essen, Germany | Group |
2002 | Teitschule with Lee Quineones (USA) | Bern, Switzaerland | Group |
2001 | Untitled | French institute of Maroco Volubilis | Group |
1993 | France graffiti in the castle | Paul Ricard Gallery | Group |
1992 | la revue parlee | Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France | Group |
1991 | Blek le rat From Paris to Tokyo | Takarashi Gallery | Group |
1990 | Paris Permanent exhibition | Christophe Gallery | Group |
1989 | Les rencontres de Marrakech | French Institure of Marrakech, Maroco | Group |
1988 | Graffiti the Christ | NYC | Group |
1987 | Untitled | Gallery Loft, Paris | Group |
1986 | Pochoirs | Agnes B Gallery, Paris, France | Group |
1985 | France Les artistes au telephone | Pierre Lescot Gallery, Paris | Group |