A Bristol Islamic centre is to sell one of Banksy’s earliest works to fund the refurbishment of its crumbling mosque.
News of the mural going up for sale came as the artist's Show Me the Monet painting fetched £7.6 million ($9.95m) at a London auction.
There was confusion in Bristol last month when Banksy’s illustration of a gorilla wearing a pink mask was removed from an exterior wall of the Jalalabad Islamic Centre. It had adorned the wall– in the west of England city from which Banksy supposedly hails – since 2001.
Now it has emerged that Bristol mosque owner Saeed Ahmed will sell the 100kg mural next month to pay for the building’s upkeep and support the local community. He had the artwork painted over in 2011, unaware of its value, but it has since been reinstated.
"The reason for selling is because the building is falling to pieces and we wanted to safeguard the piece,” Mr Ahmed said.
"We are also giving money back to local charities in the Bristol area, which I will provide to charities like Developing Health and Independence in Bristol,” he added.
The group helps support people who have been afflicted by homelessness and drug and alcohol abuse.
The auction will be staged by restoration company Exposed Walls, which undertook the removal. Wayne Rock from the firm said it took four to five days of hard graft to carry out the procedure.
"It's quite a complex job because it's on render. One of the most difficult jobs is to cut a piece of render out in its whole entirety without it crumbling," he told The National.
Mr Rock said Mr Ahmed “didn’t realise it was an iconic piece”.
“The mosque just needed refurbishing. A lot of people were doing criminal damage to the building, so he wanted to get a better CCTV system and things like that,” Mr Rock said.
"He had about six or seven different pieces of blatant scribble all over his building and he felt quite uncomfortable with that. It's got some architectural damage as well on the outside, cracked walls and stuff like that, that needed dealing with. It's just wasn't in an all-round good shape, the building."
Reinvesting the money raised at auction into the community was very important, he said.
"Art enriches lives and it's a part of our mission to ensure that it is well looked after and all restoration was intricately done," Mr Rock said.
At 9.30am local time on Thursday, bidding stood at £180,500, with the auction set to close on November 17.
Meanwhile, Banksy's oil painting parodying Claude Monet's The Water-Lily Pond sold for £7,551,600 at Sotheby's after a bidding battle.
Show Me the Monet was created in 2005, as part of a collection called The Crude Oils. It was first shown publicly in what was Banksy's second gallery exhibition.
Sotheby’s, the auctioneer, said: "The hammer came down after five determined collectors battled for nearly nine minutes to drive the final price beyond its estimate of £3m-5m to become the second highest price for the artist at auction.”
The painting takes a different look at Monet's piece, depicting a Japanese-style bridge in the French impressionist’s famous garden at Giverny transformed into a modern-day fly-tipping spot.
Instead of an idyllic lily pond, it shows discarded shopping trolleys and a fluorescent orange traffic cone floating in the water beneath the bridge.
"Ever prescient as a voice of protest and social dissent, here Banksy shines a light on society's disregard for the environment in favour of the wasteful excesses of consumerism," said Alex Branczik, Sotheby's European Head of Contemporary Art.
"Recent years have seen seminal Banksys come to auction, but this is one of his strongest, and most iconic, to appear yet."
England v South Africa schedule:
- First Test: At Lord's, England won by 219 runs
- Second Test: July 14-18, Trent Bridge, Nottingham, 2pm
- Third Test: The Oval, London, July 27-31, 2pm
- Fourth Test: Old Trafford, Manchester, August 4-8
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Friday (All UAE kick-off times)
Borussia Dortmund v Eintracht Frankfurt (11.30pm)
Saturday
Union Berlin v Bayer Leverkusen (6.30pm)
FA Augsburg v SC Freiburg (6.30pm)
RB Leipzig v Werder Bremen (6.30pm)
SC Paderborn v Hertha Berlin (6.30pm)
Hoffenheim v Wolfsburg (6.30pm)
Fortuna Dusseldorf v Borussia Monchengladbach (9.30pm)
Sunday
Cologne v Bayern Munich (6.30pm)
Mainz v FC Schalke (9pm)
