I remember reading somewhere a comment that someone made to Banksy about his rat imagery. Something along the lines of "I love the way you use rats in your art. I love that RAT is an anagram of ART." And Banksy replying that wasn't something that had crossed his mind.
Rats are city critters. They live in laneways and drains. They come out at night. Banksy has used rats in his street-art stencils and adopted them as a kind of symbol of his craftiness. Critters who spread disease, who are known for their clever ways and who are more likely than us to survive the apocalypse.
But before Banksy came Blek Le Rat - the French precursor to Banksy who first painted black life-size rats running along the walls in Paris in 1981 with a stencil. And for decades following continued to decorate the streets with references to street life, art history and current affairs. Yep, Blek is the grand-daddy of the stencil revolution that is still playing itself out in Melbourne today. Blek - born Xavier Prou - is the original rat, and he has arrived in Australia to exhibit for the first time down under.
He has already hooked up with local artists Drewfunk, Vexta & HaHa for a live painting session at Hosier Lane - Melbourne's infamous inner-city street art hotspot. Joining the dots from Paris to Melbourne, from history to today.
This retrospective exhibition entitled "The Sky is Blue, Life is Beautiful" is an iconographic journey featuring more than 30 works including iconic characters stenciled on wooden panels, spraypainted canvases, screen-prints and photographs. The show thoroughly ironic, traces Blek’s œuvre from the early eighties iconic characters to his more recent works which resound with the same black n white strength.
Blek Le Rat
“Le Ciel Est Bleu, La Vie Est Belle “, The sky is blue, life is beautiful,
December 2 - 24, 2009
Metro Gallery
1214 High Street, Armadale, Victoria 3143