“Paparazzi Rat” (London, UK, 2005) Stencil and Spray Paint on Wood Framed 53 x 43 cm. (20.8 x 17.0 in.) Very Good PROVENANCE Famed for his ability to juxtapose imagery with location, in 2005 Banksy’s selected an improbably run down building in London’s affluent Mayfair for one of his ‘Paparazzi Rats’. The building he selected was located in Trebeck St and was something of a visual anomaly at the time, having fallen into disrepair after the closure in 1998 of the Dickensian style restaurant Tiddy Dol’s Eating House, which had resided there for many years - and which had been named after Tiddy Dol, an 18th century gingerbread vendor and eccentric. Trebeck St is a narrow, high sided street that runs from quintessentially salubrious Mayfair, down to rather more louche Shepherd Market; two areas sitting cheek by jowl and yet that are culturally worlds apart. By 2005, the contrast between number 6 Trebeck St and the rest of the area was very stark. Shepherd Market was slowly being purged of all its brothels and plans were afoot to renovate the long dilapidated building into a private members’ club. As construction began, a salvage plan was quickly enacted and the piece was saved prior to the building’s renovation. It has been in the same collection since 2007. - Auctioned at Hessink’s on 25 May 2021 and sold to a private European collector PUBLICATIONS - Martin Bull: Banksy Locations & Tours Volume 2 (2011): More Graffiti Locations from the UK, published by Barnes and Noble. - Listed in the Catalogue Raisonne of Banksy’s Street Art (2023), as No. 467. DESCRIPTION A long standing devotee both of the humble rat and of the rat depicted as a member of the paparazzi, Banksy has created many versions of the paparazzi rat. His most notable and striking - if short lived - example was sprayed onto the side of the Ritz Hotel in London in 2005. Standing 8 foot tall and brandishing a camera with a small adjustable lens, the rat is depicted with his right eye shut. Other versions, see the rat grappling with more sizeable cameras and large flashes, with both eyes open and some works feature an exclamation mark over the camera. They have varied in scale and location and the rats have faced in both directions. FOOT NOTE Banksy's relationship with the media and with the concept of 'celebrity' has always been a complex one. On one hand, he is without a doubt once of the best known artists of the modern age; on the other he remains anonymous, an art world outsider who refuses to play the game. For him, there are no fawning 'the artist at home' interviews or champagne swigging photos on the society pages. It is fair to assume that Banksy has no interest in being famous, despite the fact that he has managed to become just that. Works like Paparazzi Rat explore this odd dynamic. The media is essential to Banksy's work, allowing the issues that concern him to be disseminated widely. His images on the Israeli West Bank wall and his Guantanamo Bay prisoner installation at Disney reached a global audience almost as soon as they are completed. The media, however, is a double edged sword, and our current obsession with celebrity culture is surely an anathema to Banksy. In 2006 he doctored 500 Paris Hilton CDs and released them back into record shops. Tracks re-titled 'Why I am Famous?' and 'What Am I For?' questioned the nature of celebrity for celebrity's sake.