In a defiant move that is totally in keeping with guerrilla muralist Banksy's MO, the mural of a rat that first appeared seven years ago on the side of The Red Victorian bed and breakfast in the Upper Haight, only to be cut out and removed and shown in art shows, mysteriously reappeared in the same spot sometime in the last week or so so surreptitiously, in fact, that the owners of the building at 1665 Haight didn't even know it was there. Hoodline had the news first, but people on Instagram have already been snapping it and reportedly the graffiti artists responsible simply used projectors to replicate Banksy's iconic work, as rumored via a neighbor who saw the act.
The motivation may have come from the original piece making a recent appearance in a SoMa art gallery, and strong sentiments in the art world that these pieces should not be displayed in museums or galleries, or sold to collectors.
The original 2010 mural, done in two colors and later known as the Haight Street Rat, depicted the rat appearing to have grafitti'd a long red line that connected all the way to a neighboring building on Belvedere Street where a message in large letters read "This Is Where I Draw The Line." SF Citizen captured the full angle on it here. The piece was one of a spree that Banksy painted while touring around SF in 2010 during the premiere of the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Most of the 2010 pieces are now, sadly, gone, because the city ordered them removed or covered under its graffiti ordinance which seems weird because they could have just been retroactively called murals, but I digress.
You may recall how in late 2010 the former (and now deceased) owner of the Red Victorian, Sami Sunchild, who had always considered the Banksy piece vandalism and was about to paint over it, allowed the piece to be removed whole by local self-described "art freak" Brian Greif with the caveat that it couldn't be sold. Haight Street Rat then popped up in the lobby of the US Bank tower in Los Angeles in 2014, and was also shown in a Miami gallery show alongside other Banksy pieces that had been removed from exterior walls and were never intended be sold or displayed by the artist.
For the very reason that Banksy does not intend for these graffiti pieces, which at their heart express anti-establishment sentiments, to be displayed in museums or sold, SFMOMA refused to accept Haight Street Rat as a gift from Greif without a letter from Banksy allowing this, as well as a certificate of authenticity. Banksy refused to provide that, and some of this forms the drama of the subsequent documentary Saving Banksy, which was executive produced by Greif.
As far as we know, Greif still has the original Haight Street Rat in his possession, and has complied with his promise never to sell it and refused multiple six-figure offers despite Hoodline suggesting it was sold to a collector.
The original has been on view for several months at the Weinstein Gallery in downtown SF as part of a show of "urban surrealism," which perhaps sparked the recreators to do their work in the Haight, possibly overnight on July 4 while cops were all preoccupied with fireworks shenanigans.
So, everyone's hopes that Banksy was just getting rolling on a fresh round of San Francisco street artworks appears to have been debunked, and it's unclear how he'd even feel about this kind of replication. But, the reappearance of Haight Street Rat in the exact place it once was at least expresses the idea, that he would approve of, that this piece belongs here and only here and that such "vandalism" has a way of sneaking right back once it's "cleaned."
As Curbed notes, says Haight resident theelizzrdqueen, who spotted the piece out her window this week, "I'm glad #thebanksyrat is back. His presence reminds me that the resistance is still alive, that people do care and are fighting back and that a single person or a single act can make an impact that reverberates throughout the world. And that act can be as small as putting up a piece of art where you aren't supposed to."
It remains to be seen if the building owners will be forced to cover this one up too.
Related: Photos: New Banksy Pieces In SF
Banksy Piece 'Rescued' From The Red Vic Swiped By Los Angeles
