Posted in: Comics, Current News, Pop Culture | Tagged: banksy, margate, Showpiece

Banksy's Valentine Day Mascara Mural To Be Sold In Fractionalised Form

I have no idea what Banksy thinks about his work sold as fractionalised shares. But I guess we will find out with Valentine's Day Mascara.

I have no idea what Banksy thinks about his work being sold as fractionalised shares. I haven't seen him to talk to since the days of the old London UKCAC comic conventions in London, and I didn't know who he was then. But I guess we are about to find out. Banksy's Valentine's Day Mascara is going to go on sale as a fractionalised artwork through Showpiece from next Tuesday. What that means is that the 2023 mural by street artist Banksy, valued at £6 million, will be made accessible for members of the public to own a share of, for just £120 each. And it will never leave Margate.

Valentine's Day Mascara appeared on the side of a house in the English seaside town of Margate in Kent on Valentine's Day this year. And confirmed to be genuine via the artist's Instagram account. The work was removed from the building "for preservation" earlier this year, and the owner has entertained offers from private collectors around the world. However, they have decided to keep the work in the town it was created, available to be viewed by the public at the Dreamland Margate amusement arcade, and sold in a very different way.

The work shows a nineteen-fifties caricatured housewife complete with a blue apron and marigold washing up gloves, closing a fridge on a victim, with her black eye and missing tooth suggesting a history of abuse. As part of this sale, Showpiece will raise funds in aid of Refuge, the largest domestic abuse organisation in Britain.

Aaron Carter, Managing Director of Showpiece, stated "Like many of Banksy's works, Valentines Day Mascara highlights a serious subject matter. We hope that by working with our charity partners, we can continue to promote the work they accomplish and support the causes Banksy is concerned with."

Next week, 27,000 shares in the ownership of the work will be issued, and each will also unlock access to a range of ongoing and interactive digital and physical benefits, including Showpiece limited edition prints created by printmakers King & McGaw.

Julian Usher, CEO of Red8 Gallery, which is representing the interests of the original owner of the mural, commented: "I'm so pleased that the Banksy work can be hosted at Dreamland, so that it remains in the town for everyone to come and see. The fact that it will be accessible for people to actually own a share in is wonderful – and it also means the mural can now make Margate its official home."

The fractionalised Banksy artwork is also being featured as a prize in Cancelled, a new reality TV show featuring online influencers that is streaming on social media.

Showpiece is part of the Castelnau Group and specialises in collectables, as opposed to investments, including brands such as Hornby, Stanley Gibbons and Scalextric. But recently Showpiece made available Andy Warhol's £350,000 Reigning Queen as well as a £275,000 first edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in a fractionalised ownership form.

Banksy has, in the past, satirised the way the art market has reacted to his work, most famously when he embedded a shredder in the frame of one piece for the day when it would be sold at auction. How he will react to Showpiece's fractionalised sale of his work may also prove just as entertaining.

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