FOR MORE INFORMATION - 134 NEW BOND STREET – LONDON W1S2TF +44(0)20 7491 2999 london@operagallery.com

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WHO IS BLEK LE RAT? Meet the Father of Stencil Art… 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 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 - “the only free animal in the city”, while creating a style that would suit Paris and not copy the American style. His street name is said to originate from a childhood cartoon “Blek Le Roc”, also using “rat” as an anagram for “art”. Blek Le Rat’s real identity was revealed in 1991 when he was arrested while stenciling a replica of the Caravaggio’s “Madonna and Child”. He stopped painting on walls after that, and after he was fined for ten years worth of graffiti and threatened that he would face jail if caught again. He continues to produce work in the form of posters and canvases. Considered to be one of the pioneers of Stencil art, Blek Le Rat was invited by the Tate Modern to be part of a talk about the Tate’s street art exhibition in 2008. The same year, the Sunday Times referred to him as “The Rat who gave birth to Banksy” (Januszczak Waldemar, 8 June 2008). His social and political works have had a great influence on today's graffiti art and “guerilla art” movements. Beyond France and England, Blek Le Rat is now part of the international art scene. He lives in France with his wife and teenage son.

The Founding Father of Street Art returns to the UK for an exclusive

exhibition.

27TH April - 18TH May

*Opera Gallery special: 1 free print, signed & numbered, to the first 100 people visiting the exhibition.

OPERA GALLERY LONDON

134 NEW BOND STREET LONDON W1S2TF

BLEK LE RAT

FOR MORE INFORMATION - 134 NEW BOND STREET – LONDON W1S2TF +44(0)20 7491 2999 london@operagallery.com 2

THE BANKSY POLEMIC French stencil artist vs. British graffiti hero… In 2008, British Graffiti artist Banksy acknowledged Blek Le Rat’s influence, stating this now famous sentence: "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" (first reported by Coan Lee, 13 June 2008, Daily Mail). In the past, the two have expressed mutual desire for collaboration and, indeed, in 2011 Blek Le Rat was witnessed adding to one of Banksy’s murals in San Francisco. When some claimed that Banksy had copied Blek Le Rat’s work, the latter disagreed and said: “people say he copies me, but I don’t think so. I’m the old man, he’s the new kid, and if I’m an inspiration to an artist that good, I love it.” However, the polemic was reborn when, in the documentary Graffiti Wars, Blek was filmed saying: "When I see Banksy making a man with a child or Banksy making rats, of course I see immediately where he takes the idea. I do feel angry. When you’re an artist you use your own techniques. It’s difficult to find a technique and style in art so when you have a style and you see someone else is taking it and reproducing it, you don’t like that. I’m not sure about his integrity. Maybe he has to show his face now and show what kind of guy he is."

OPERA GALLERY AND BLEK LE RAT Representing the artist for over 3 years...

Opera Gallery is a global network of 12 galleries. The London branch opened in 2005, and is located in the heart of London’s luxuriously Mayfair. In 2008, while Blek Le Rat was in London for his talk at Tate, Opera Gallery Director and Chairman Jean-David Malat and Gilles Dyan met him and Blek showed enough trust and faith in them to provide the gallery with some pieces. This is how their collaboration started, and 3 years later the relationship between the international gallery and the artist has never been stronger: he is shown in all 12 galleries around the world. He is also one of Opera Gallery’s most successful artists, and this is remarkable in every country where the gallery is present: Opera Gallery’s clients and public know Blek Le Rat’s work and know him as the Father of street art.

Nowadays, it appears absolutely undeniable that Blek Le Rat has gained the recognition that he deserves after decades of unstinting devotion to the arts in the streets. Jean-David MALAT, Director of Opera Gallery London and Curator of this exhibition, was also a contributor to Art Publishing Ltd’s 30 year retrospective book “Blek Le Rat” - published in 2011 (http://www.artpublishingltd.com/new/blek/)

QUOTES Blek Le Rat said… “As an artist I do not think that we truly invent anything at this point. For me it is more about focusing on a memory that I may have had, than actually inventing anything. People recreate what they have seen but with their own vision. I do not believe in the painter who says I invent this or that. It does not exist anymore. It is just how you do it that makes it different than others. I can say I have taken inspiration from many places in my life.” “I really believe the graffiti and street art movement is the most important movement in art ever. There is not a city in the world without graffiti now. It has never happened like this with the amount of people involved ever before. Not even in pop art, which was a big movement. Art should be saved for the future generations, which is why I think it is important for the gallery end to support street art, if for nothing else than for history.”