BLEK LE RAT FLY POSTS MAGMA

06 May 2008 | books

To celebrate the launch of his new book published by Thames and Hudson Blek Le Rat comes to London to leave his mark on a few spots, one being our store in Clerkenwell. Blek Le Rat is a forbearer of stencil art and has been doing it since the the early 80's, his iconography has influenced many street artists to name a few Sheperd Fairey and Banksy.

Choosing stencils as his medium was a direct reactional choice not to imitate the graffiti he had seen in NYC whilst traveling there circa 1971. This to him was an individual style that can now be seen imitated on the streets of nearly every major city.

The simplicity and rather accurate representations of these stencils allowed his messages to be strong and clear. This allowed him to communicate more complex subjects involving war, poverty and politics thus moving further away from the more inane, to a certain extent, meaningless graffiti that covered the streets of American cities.

I think we can safely say that Blek believes in his art and uses it as his voice to the world, his first life-size stencil being an old Irish man that had the courage to stand up to the IRA and bring a halt to their fire, these sorts of acts of humanity, bravery and honour can be seen throughout Blek's work and this piece in particular has been one of his most used pieces worldwide.

Using images ranging from the late lady Diana which he stenciled on to the Tate modern to Russian soldiers invading the walls of Paris and a naked lady near to where Serge Gainsbourg lived illustrates Blek's awareness of topical and current issues and even his sense of humour which the afore mentioned Serge actually quite admired, at least enough to be photographed next to it.

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Bottom 2 photographs by Ray Tang

Text: James Finch.