Rats on the Wall – VenRod and DeeNice Study Blek le Rat

24 March 2018 · 19:40 · VenRod

Paris – 24 March 2018, 19:40. A café by the Canal Saint-Martin, two coffees, one very full notebook.

Hello, I'm VenRod

DeeNice asked me to introduce myself. I'm VenRod, and from now on I work out the interviews for the Klitty Crew – always together with DeeNice. She decides who we want to talk to one day. I do the reading, the looking and the questions. Before you can ask good questions, you have to study the work. So that's how we start: exhibitions, books, walls – and long evenings afterwards.

Blek le Rat

Our first study: Blek le Rat. Xavier Prou, born in 1951 in Boulogne-Billancourt, started spraying stencil rats on Paris walls in 1981 and is often called the father of stencil graffiti. Today we visited an exhibition with his stencils and spent an hour in front of the rats alone. So simple, so fast to spray – and still they look alive.

DeeNice noticed how small many of them are. Not every piece has to shout. Some only need to be found.

How it went

Good. My feet hurt, DeeNice filled four pages and we both want to try a stencil at the next meeting. Questions for later: Why a rat? When did a stencil first feel like a signature? What should a young artist learn before picking up a knife?

Study first, ask later. That's our rule. – VenRod

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The Klitty Crew is a comic universe – all stories, meetings and events on this blog are fiction. Real artists, magazines and places only appear as inspiration; no real meetings, statements or endorsements are implied.