In the first picture, we see a political commentary on France’s strict anti-migrant policy, with approximately 40 makeshift camps having been razed in Paris during the preceding three years, according to reporting published in June 2018. The murals appeared during a dispute over the Macron administration’s migration policy, giving the images a specific historical setting.
In the depiction, a young girl of African descent sprays a wallpaper pattern the color pink covering a swastika on a wall beside her sleeping bag and teddy bear while trying to make her patch of pavement cozier.
The picture is on a wall in northern Paris next to an official refugee shelter which was controversially closed in March 2018, despite protests from the capital's Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo.
Contemporary June 2018 reporting estimated that about 2,000 migrants, including kids and teenagers, were sleeping rough along canals and under motorway bridges.
The second and third artworks appeared soon after that. One depicts a suited man luring a three-legged dog with a bone while hiding a saw behind his back, an image that invites a reading about power offering help while concealing harm. The contrast is visible within the scene itself: the apparent gift and the hidden tool tell different stories about the same encounter. The other is Banksy’s take on the iconic painting “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” by Jacques-Louis David, a symbol of French power and influence. Covering the rider’s face with the cape interrupts the confident image of leadership in David’s painting. The commanding pose remains, but the figure appears unable to see. That visual contradiction can suggest political blindness without requiring the viewer to assign a single meaning to every fold of fabric.
Fire door, Bataclan
The rat works connect Banksy’s familiar motif with the city associated with stencil pioneer Blek Le Rat. Blek’s use of rats belongs to an earlier history of Paris street art and provides a useful point of comparison for Banksy’s recurring small protagonists.Blek Le Rat Placing them around the city in ways that interact with local graffiti and building facades, it might appear as though they are having fun blowing things up. One reading connects them with the protests and strikes of May 1968, whose fiftieth anniversary fell in 2018. The association places the playful animals alongside a history of collective action, while leaving room for the humour of each individual scene.Background on May 1968 in France
In one piece a rat is propelled by a popping champagne bottle cork. Using this symbol of affluence as their vehicle to overtake obstacles, the small animal can be read as an unlikely agent of change, turning a luxury object into a means of movement. The contrast between the rat’s size and the energy of the scene gives the image much of its character.
Flashback to a Banksy "The Simpsons" episode:
(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)
All photos courtesy of WhereTheresWalls.
Recognizable images with something changed
The rider adapted from Jacques-Louis David and the suited man with a dog work through different kinds of recognition. One borrows a familiar image of power and alters it. The other gives the viewer conflicting clues: an apparent offering in front and a concealed tool behind. In each case, the contradiction invites a second look.
That is more specific than calling every mural a general protest. The altered reference, the position of an object, and the setting of the wall help determine how a particular image communicates. A viewer can describe those features before deciding which political interpretation seems most persuasive.
The wall is part of the historical record
The photographs record encounters with the murals in Paris in 2018. A wall brings more into the composition than a neutral gallery background would: its surface, nearby marks, edges and position in the street become part of what a viewer notices. The historical circumstances around a shelter or public building can add another layer of meaning to an otherwise spare stencil.
Political interpretations can be persuasive without becoming a complete explanation supplied by the artist. The images leave viewers to make connections between what is depicted and the world around the wall. A covered rider can invite discussion about blindness and authority without establishing that a single interpretation exhausts the work.
The gallery rewards comparison at two levels: what the artist has changed within each image, and how the surrounding place adds meaning. The photographs credited to WhereTheresWalls make that relationship available to readers who did not encounter the works in person. Framing determines how much of the surroundings we can see, so the photograph is also a particular view of the artwork. A photograph documents a particular encounter with street art; it cannot guarantee that the original work remains in place or unchanged years later.
For more art that depends on its surroundings, explore 28 Street Art Works That Turn Their Surroundings Into the Picture.
What happened to the Bataclan door
The stencil on the Bataclan’s fire door, a mournful young woman painted as a tribute to the 90 people killed at the concert hall in the November 2015 attacks, did not stay in place. Thieves cut the metal door out with angle grinders in January 2019. Italian Carabinieri announced on June 10, 2020, that they had found it in the attic of a farmhouse in Sant’Omero, in the Abruzzo region near the Adriatic coast. In June 2022 eight men went on trial in Paris over the theft.
Sources: Artnet News: Banksy’s Bataclan mural found in an Italian farmhouse (June 11, 2020) Al Jazeera: Eight men go on trial for stealing Banksy from Paris attack site (June 8, 2022)
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