In October, he stole headlines during Frieze London when Devolved Parliament – a painting devoid of artistic or ethical merit – sold for £9.9 million. (A man, according to reports, was seen shouting: “Shall I tag it?”) The Jewellery Quarter Business Improvement District, with one eye on repeat offenders and another on the bottom line, will be employing “round-the-clock” security to avoid a repeat. The reindeer sit behind perspex now.īanksy has had a busy year. One reindeer gained a red nose, spray-painted fuzzily on. Soon, local artists – in their way – engaged. The artist filmed a homeless man, “Ryan”, settling down in the winter chill, and thanked passers-by in the Jewellery Quarter for the generosity they quickly showed. His latest work is a pair of stencilled reindeer, hooked up in a trompe l’oeil trick to an actual wooden bench.
A Blek le Rat exhibition also opens at the Thru Cargo Garden, Arch 461, 83 Rivington Street, London on May 9.īanksy’s Bristol: Home Sweet Home by Steve Wright is published by Tangent Books (£12).Banksy is back again, this time in Birmingham. We suggest checking out Blek’s book for some of those original ideas.īlek le Rat is published by Thames & Hudson on May 12 (£11.95). And here, the reference to Blek’s potential influence is brief, but nonetheless revealing: “Every time I think I’ve painted something original, I find out that Blek le Rat has done it as well, only twenty years earlier.” In Blek le Rat (published by Thames & Hudson) Sybille Prou – who is also Mrs Blek le Rat – and filmmaker King Adz have done a fine job in bringing Blek’s story across, collecting together a range of images of his iconic street art.Ĭoincidentally, Banksy’s very first “unofficial biography” is also published next month. But Blek, a Frenchman, has been working on ironic self-portraits, stencilled socio-political commentary and, interestingly – rats – since 1981. While Blek’s reputation, at least beyond the world of street art, is far less well known, a new book of his work looks certain to bring his art to a wider audience and throw up a few more questions on just how influential he’s been.Īpparently, when Blek was pasting up an image in a London street last year, he was asked by an inquisitive passerby: “are you Banksy?” Such is the notable similarity between the two graffiti artist’s work.
As a result, Banksy’s artistic reputation – no doubt helped by his anonymity – has been elevated to near mythical status. But the perception of Banksy as the pioneer of street art is certainly the one favoured by the media and the art world. While Banksy is a relative newcomer to the graffiti scene, Blek le Rat has been stencilling, pasting and daubing his way around the world for nearly thirty years.
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