One of Banksy’s recent posts on Instagram excited his fanbase – it contained the image of Banksy’s latest piece of street art located in a mysterious, unnamed place. The search mission started, and due to the concerted effort of the community, the lighthouse mural was finally traced to one of the Marseille streets.
The search mission
Once the image of the lighthouse mural appeared on Banksy’s Instagram, the community of his fans started a global search mission to identify the place of this stencil art piece. The first guess of Banksy’s fansite traced the mural to Le Panier, a district located to the north of Marseille’s port, known as a hub of street art production. However, the BBC Verify service analyzed the publication using Google Street View images and finally located the mural in the St-Lambert region of the city of Marseille. The greatest aid in the search for the mural’s exact location was from lighthouse-shaped bollards typical for that part of the city, which helped Banksy fans find the new creation.
The messaging of the new lighthouse mural
As usual, the new Banksy mural contains a deep, thought-provoking idea that invites the audience to reflect upon it. This time, Banksy created an image of a lighthouse, which is stenciled on a beige wall. The message on the mural reads, “I want to be what you saw in me.” The pavement of the street on which the mural was created contains bollards, and a false shadow is drawn from one of them to the lighthouse. Due to this technique, the lighthouse on the wall appears to be the shadow of a usual element of street furniture.
Experts associate the message Banksy stenciled on the lighthouse image with a song from the country band Lonestar under the title “Softly.” Its lyrics include the words, “I want to be what you see in me. I want to love you the way that you love me.” Although the exact idea behind this mural remains unclear, similar to last year’s animal series in the streets of London and the Madonna and Child mural, its visual impact is striking.
Another element that causes contemplation is the reference to the Canadian graffiti artist Marco The Polo due to the presence of the “Yaze” graffiti tag on Banksy’s snapshot. The latter repeatedly named Banksy as a source of his creative inspiration. As usual, Banksy remains a mysterious figure, creating anonymous street art around the globe.