As graffiti moved out of New York and became global street art, something kind of amazing happened. The medium’s core — claiming public space to visually articulate people and ideas whose voices were often distorted, ignored or silenced — remained intact. At the same time, taking paint to a wall was flexible enough for any can-ster in the world to voice a culturally specific cause.

Not many street artists have stayed as true to this global shift as French legend Blek le Rat, who blew up when he plastered Paris with life-size stencils of a French journalist who was kidnapped in Iraq and for whom politicians and the public didn’t seem to care.

But le Rat has been doing this since the early 1970’s, when he earned his alias by stenciling little rats all over Paris until they became as iconic to the city as REVS in was in New York.

Given Blek le Rat’s long reputation, it’s kind of surprising that his work has never made it to U.S. shores until now, so check it out this weekend if you are around L.A. His State-side debut at Subliminal Art Projects opens tomorrow.