RAT CLOCK (GOLD), 2021

Auction History

Catalogue Note

Running Against the Clock

Rat Clock (Gold) transforms one of the most ordinary objects of everyday life into a wonderfully simple meditation on time, work and the endless routines of modern existence. Across the face of a functioning wall clock, Banksy places one of his familiar rats in full motion. Its body stretches forward, legs extended and tail trailing behind, as though it were desperately racing around the circumference of the clock without ever being able to escape it.

The visual joke is immediate, but the metaphor is unusually rich. The rat appears caught in a perpetual race against time, turning the familiar expression “rat race” into a literal image. However quickly it runs, the clock continues to move and the rat remains trapped inside the same circular system. The work can consequently be read as a characteristically Banksy-like comment on repetitive labour, productivity and the routines through which modern life is measured in hours, deadlines and schedules.

From Gross Domestic Product to Gold

The original Rat Clock emerged from Banksy's Gross Domestic Product, the extraordinary homewares project launched in Croydon in 2019. GDP deliberately blurred the boundaries between artwork, merchandise and domestic object, offering everything from mugs and cushions to rugs, toys and clocks. The project itself grew partly from Banksy's trademark dispute and his attempt to demonstrate commercial use of his name, turning the normally mundane business of merchandising into another conceptual intervention.

The clock was perfectly suited to this environment. Rather than placing a rat on paper and framing it, Banksy allowed the image to inhabit an actual household object. The clock still performs its ordinary function, but the rat transforms that function into the subject of the artwork. Time is no longer simply displayed; it becomes something the animal appears condemned to chase.

The 2021 gold variants take that idea in a different direction. Auction records describe them as a series of unique variants rather than a conventional numbered edition, and Christie's records another example as having been acquired directly from the artist.

The Irony of Gold

Gold radically changes the character of the object. What began as an inexpensive-looking office clock is transformed into something conspicuously decorative, almost luxurious. Yet Banksy's rat remains exactly where it was: running.

That contrast introduces another layer of irony. Gold traditionally signifies wealth, permanence and achievement, while the rat occupies the opposite end of the cultural hierarchy: unwanted, urban, opportunistic and associated with the margins of society. Banksy brings the two together on an object whose sole purpose is to measure something that neither wealth nor status can ultimately control.

The composition itself remains beautifully economical. There are no numerals and almost no conventional decoration beyond the minute markers around the circumference. Against the uninterrupted gold field, the black-and-white rat becomes the dominant visual event. Its horizontal movement also conflicts with the circular logic of the clock: the animal seems determined to run somewhere, even though the object containing it offers nowhere to go.

The Rat as Banksy's Alter Ego

The rat has occupied a central place in Banksy's imagery since the earliest years of his career. Clever, unwanted and extraordinarily difficult to eradicate, it is the perfect inhabitant of the urban environment and has frequently operated as a surrogate for the graffiti artist himself. Rats appear painting walls, carrying placards, taking photographs, making music and resisting authority throughout Banksy's work.

In Rat Clock, however, the rat is not rebelling against the system so much as apparently trapped inside one. The distinction makes the image particularly effective. The rebellious outsider has entered the domestic world, but instead of escaping society's machinery, it finds itself running inside perhaps the most universal machine of all: time.

Rat Clock (Gold) captures much of what made Gross Domestic Product such an interesting extension of Banksy's practice. It is simultaneously an artwork, a functional household object and a joke about the very culture in which such objects circulate. The 2021 gold treatment heightens the contradiction, transforming an ordinary clock into something luxurious while leaving its frantic protagonist condemned to exactly the same race.

The work ultimately requires remarkably little: a clock, a rat and the passage of time. Yet from those elements Banksy constructs an image about work, consumption, ambition and mortality. The clock may be gold, but the rat still has to keep running.

Variations Sold at Auction