Blek Le Rat

     So who was the founder of street art? None other than Blek Le Rat. His real name is Xavier Prou and was born in 1952 in Paris. Blek is known to be the "Godfather" of urban art starting to put his art in Europe, especially Paris, in the early 80's. He began to just do stencils of rats on the side of buildings, hence his name, claiming that rats were the only free animals and because in "rat" you can find "art". He was inspired by the graffiti he saw in New York City but since Paris and NYC are such different atmospheres, he knew he couldn't just copy the graffiti because it wouldn't reflect the surroundings of his home land.
    He is an inspiration to all street artist but especially Banksy. They have even thought about collaborating their artwork but little is known about their plans. The difference between Banksy and Blek is that Banksy's artwork is painted or made directly on the side of a building while over the years Blek has moved from using the actual buildings as his canvas and has resorted to  making posters. However, Blek depends on what is written on the walls as inspiration for his next piece of artwork. After all, artwork must reflect the state of a city for people to relate to it.
    Blek le Rat will contunue to make himself known as the original stencil pioneer but he is always interested and inspired by other artists and by what he sees on the streets. His art will be forever changing but we can note that he was the first to step out of the realm of "traditional" art and create a new type of urban art.