Originally created in 2004 for a trip in London which was pasted-up in London, New York, Prague, Buenos Aires, Taipei, Leipzig, Berlin, and more recently in Munich in 2016, making it Blek’s most travelled character.Įven though Blek le Rat has expressed a preference for working in the streets over galleries, he has held numerous exhibitions throughout the world and has participated in various street art festivals. Among his famous posters is a self-portrait of the artist himself with the body of Buster Keaton, the artist’s favourite actor, depicting as a travelling man carrying suitcases. After this, in order to be quicker and avoid being re-arrested, the artist started pasting up pre-stencilled posters.
In 1991, Blek le Rat was arrested for painting in the street. The use of stencils allows him the opportunity for endless reproduction. Throughout the 1980s, Blek’s art developed from small pieces into life-size characters like the representation of famous Andy Warhol, Tom Waits, Jesus Christ, and a portrait of Blek le Rat himself. He chose the pseudonym Blek le Rat in reference to an Italian comic book Blek le Roc, using rat as an anagram for art. He described the rat as “the only free animal in the city”, and one which “spreads the plague everywhere, just like street art”. To him, the rat symbolised both freedom and the dissemination of art through the city as if it were the plague. He started stencilling the walls of Paris in 1981 – when street painting had not yet become associated with criminal activity – spray-painting small black rats running along the walls of the fourteenth Arrondissement. When he came back to France with colourful graffiti images in mind, Blek enrolled at Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris. When Blek le Rat visited New York in 1972 this was the very first time he had ever seen graffiti in his life. He is often described as “the father of stencil graffiti.” About Blek le Rat (born Xavier Prou in 1952, Paris), recognised as the pioneer of Paris street art, has been painting committed pieces in the streets since the early eighties.
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