Where is the victim of domestic abuse in the narrative and media coverage of Valentine’s Day Mascara, and shouldn’t an artist with thirty years of political rallying under his belt have done better than this?
Since 2012, I’ve led critical-thinking tours of Manchester. They can range from wildflowers as symbols of urban decay to the absence of public benches. Ultimately, each route has a tie to art with my retelling of the Northern Quarter’s modern history, using both its street art and public art as an anchor of the district’s redevelopment narrative.
Street art originated through the movement to liberate art from art galleries and the middle classes, but its informal setting leads to a lack of scrutiny – except once-in-a-while negative reactions to the removal of (usually male) celebrity portraits. But as the global consciousness has started to recognise that statues are often problematic, why haven’t we yet cast an expository eye over the walls of our cities and towns?
Manchester doesn’t have a Banksy. In 2001 it had several, then the council cleaned them off. By sheer luck one escaped the clean-up, but its eventual conservation (which I don’t believe any artists or preservationists were consulted on), seemed to actually speed up its deterioration and it vanished entirely in December 2022.
I tend to steer conversation away from Banksy, there’s little I can say that hasn’t been said. At least that was the case until his latest piece, which has led to a vacuum of interpretative commentary. Yes, it’s been in the news, for twenty-four hours it was barely out of it, but where is the discussion about the work itself rather than the council’s interference with it? Is Banksy beyond reproach?
Valentine’s Day Mascara, painted on the side of a house in Margate, has evaded a single critical analysis of his depiction of domestic violence despite worldwide coverage.
There are countless articles about the removal of the freezer and the wide-spread response of outrage, as if Banksy didn’t know this would happen and that it would create even more publicity. The removal was inevitable and, arguably, a desired part of the process.
In short, something doesn’t sit right with me about this mural. Is it that I see the artist, perhaps subconsciously, using abuse victims as a publicity stunt? Has he covered anything about domestic violence before? And does it matter if he hasn’t?
Part of my uncertainty is in how Banksy opted to use an icon of domestic life, the 1950s housewife, but in doing so has implied that this is an historical issue rather than an ongoing contemporary one: ‘Remember when men used to kill their wives? Glad that’s all cleared up nowadays.’
The housewife does what housewives do and clears up the mess – it’s her labour of love to clean the house and settle familial unrest. Banksy’s subject seems to communicate that it would be inappropriate to speak to outsiders about the abuse she has experienced. The 50s iconography indicates shame: of asking for help at home, and of speaking up in an era of Stiff Upper Lip.
The implication behind this piece seems to be: domestic violence is historical and it’s the burden of the victim to end it. That message may reverberate most with those who have been mentally abused and belittled, whose self-confidence has been erased. It says that this is something which starts and ends behind closed doors, and it’s entirely within the victim’s capabilities to resolve. I see this image and I see victims being asked: ‘why aren’t you trying harder?’
Could the artist have done this in a much more significant and empathetic way to women and victims of abuse? Yes, of course; he only needed to speak to any woman beforehand. Even the most cursory questioning of someone with feminised lived experience would have flagged this as a sort of male-gaze adjacent glance at men killing women.
The mural has already been protected behind perspex awaiting the imminent relocation of the wall to Dreamland, and when a buyer is found there will be a six-figure donation to Oasis Domestic Abuse Society ‘on behalf of the owners’. The piece is predicted to sell for £2 million. Without doubt the decision to donate a portion of this is to be applauded, but it’s worth pointing out that the owners are the people whose house it is painted, on so it’s at their request, not Banksy’s, that ‘they wish a local charity supporting prevention of domestic abuse against women to benefit‘.
From Banksy himself there’s been no link to a domestic violence charity or helpline on his website, on his socials, nor in any of the press coverage. Part of Banksy’s anonymity and self-styled mystique is that he shares his work without comment (he confirms murals to be authentic by posting a captionless image on Instagram). But someone who wields such influence can surely post a helpline without being deemed off brand. He could, and if he is to make his name and fortune in socio-political awareness-raising, he should.
The removal of the freezer, which again, he had the foresight to know was imminent, has made the PR about him, about the council, about the argument of public art as a vital income generator for Margate’s tourism and its cultural place on the map. These are all worthwhile discussion points, but ones his work has brought up time and again. So, is his artwork altruistic? If so, shouldn’t he have chosen a format that set the narrative upon domestic violence, not on yet another local government failing to respond to street art appropriately?
One day after removal, the freezer was returned after having been made safe, so the failure of the council as art-guardian as an argument is already moot. Protecting street art is not even the desired outcome by most street artists, as it too-often ends up with corporations monetising art that isn’t theirs – otherwise known as artwashing – and doesn’t allow for the transience of street art to make way for the next piece. It’s meant to be ephemeral. The mural as a format inherently raises questions over its suitability to commemorate or celebrate lives and movements. What message do we send, for instance, when we paint over the image of a person of colour?
It’s not like domestic violence is a new issue that Banksy’s responding to – he could have made a piece about violence against women at any point in the last three decades of his career, but I don’t know that he has. This is not necessarily a criticism, I myself could have spoken out on many issues earlier in life and didn’t – there’s always space to start a new discussion. But it’s been thirty years coming, so why isn’t it better?
To my knowledge, there’s never been as much national media coverage of women being killed than at the present time, so what value does his piece add to the discourse at this point, when he had the power to bring this to the forefront of discussion sooner? I can’t shake the feeling that his timing is off, somehow zeitgeist-chasing, as if he’s riding on the coattails of a social issue for his own ends.
Exploring the emotions of the piece, I see the woman exhibiting pride in her accomplishment. Less generously, what I see a smugness in her victory, or a complicit wink that says: men should be concerned about women’s backstabbing and conspiratorial ways. Which will surely trigger unwanted emotions in abusers – not the kind of discomfort that will initiate positive change, but fortify a notion that women are getting the upper hand on them. I’m sure this isn’t Banksy’s intention here, but I find it hard not to see the tone of this piece as incel-baiting (as demonstrated here, claiming it is part of a campaign to shame and blame men by ‘victimhood influencers’, and also here).
If this was a piece of art by someone with a smaller platform than Banksy, someone without such a loud political voice, I’d probably think nothing of it. But my expectation is raised because Banksy has such media influence and made his career by commenting on socially-just issues. If he’s not to be held accountable for interrogating his designs, isn’t this just virtue signalling? Is it better than Banksy saying nothing?
The impact of Valentine’s Day Mascara is impossible to measure or qualify, but in the ways this piece has made me feel personally, in its pretence as a non-partisan gesture, I can’t be sure whether his contribution is valuable in the conversation, or actually detrimental.
Other questions around this piece are around the location – whose house is this on, who lives on this street and confronts this image of a beaten-up woman daily?
The politics of street art’s locations is complex, but the placement of public art and how it changes spaces and makes people feel seems only ever to be assessed positively. In Manchester’s Stevenson Square, for example, the users and usage of the square altered when Akse painted the George Floyd Black Lives Matter mural. Members of the black community immediately began to use the space as a meeting point, using the public realm for its intention, rather than visiting to simply drink in the bars, as is the norm in there. The average age of the people visiting the square significantly lowered. It made the space more equitable, and showed demand for a space that wasn’t commercialised/privatised/beer-gardenised.
Until now, I hadn’t considered the geographical placement of art from a negative stance – from the point of view of facing up to a fear or threat. If this Banksy is in persistent view by a victim of abuse then it should raise important questions about consent in public art. I’m sure they wouldn’t choose to have this up in their living room, but now it’s on their street, with the weight of all the tourism it will bring, and the men it will anger, so it starts to become something we need to interrogate further.
You can support women right now by donating to Refuge or Women’s Aid.
If you are a victim of domestic abuse, you can call the freephone 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.
Published 18.02.2023 by Jazmine Linklater in Explorations
1,740 words