I kept this image in my mind for a long, long time.” They had survived all those years since the war. Portraits of Mussolini wearing a helmet- a war hero in profile. My father, a prisoner-of-war in Germany, explained that these images were made by Fascists during WW2. I asked my father what these stencils were about. “ It was here on the walls of the city where a series of faded brown stencils seized me. Haring was the first to transform tagging into art.”įor Le Rat, the most vivid memory of all was not this 1971 trip to downtown New York or Haring’s fluoro style but an early childhood trip with his family to the picturesque town of Padova, Italy in 1961. I discovered his day-glo graffiti in the late 1970s. For me graffiti really began with Keith Haring. A friend told me tags were a means for marking out gang territory war borders. I was fascinated by them but these people have no relationship to Kings or to royalty I thought. I noticed crowns depicted above the tags.
In 1971, I was 21 and made my first trip to New York. There was nothing at all like this in France. Tagging caught on, exploding during the early1970s.
Two years later, Taki 183 was the first New Yorker to tag subways. “A personal history of graffiti art? In Philadelphia in 1967 there was Cornbread, we believe he was the first to tag streets with his name. Were it not for the Banksy comment, his life’s work would remain largely unknown outside of France and his role as a serious artist seriously discounted. “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. INPRESS | Street Press Article 2009 | Interview with Blek Le Ratīlek Le Rat lets the rat out of the proverbial with artist writer Paul Andrew.
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