NEW ORLEANS RATS

Catalogue Note

Several rats appeared among Banksy’s 2008 interventions in New Orleans, extending one of the artist’s most enduring motifs into the particular environment of the post-Katrina city. In one work, a small rat wearing what appears to be protective or work equipment stands beneath a young girl balanced on a stool. The contrast in scale creates an ambiguous encounter between the two figures, while the deteriorating brick and plaster wall remains an important part of the composition.

Elsewhere, Banksy placed a solitary rat on the façade of a damaged and boarded building, surrounded by existing signs, graffiti and warnings to keep out. In this setting, the rat seems particularly at home. Throughout Banksy’s work, rats function as survivors and outsiders, occupying neglected spaces and continuing to exist at the margins of an environment designed for others. Their association with resilience and adaptability acquires additional resonance in neighborhoods still visibly marked by Hurricane Katrina three years after the disaster.

The New Orleans rats are relatively modest interventions compared with works such as Nola or Abraham Lincoln, but their placement is characteristic of Banksy’s approach to the city. Rather than separating the stencil from its surroundings, he allows damaged walls, abandoned buildings and existing street markings to participate in the image. The rats become small inhabitants of this altered urban landscape, connecting Banksy’s established iconography with the specific physical conditions he encountered in New Orleans.