{"id":265080,"date":"2025-05-31T09:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T09:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/banksy-unveils-new-lighthouse-mural-with-the-words-i-want-to-be-what-you-saw-in-me-in-france\/"},"modified":"2025-05-31T09:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T09:32:08","slug":"banksy-unveils-new-lighthouse-mural-with-the-words-i-want-to-be-what-you-saw-in-me-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=265080","title":{"rendered":"Banksy Unveils New Lighthouse Mural With the Words ‘I Want to Be What You Saw in Me’ in France"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The anonymous street artist announced the uncharacteristically personal artwork on May 29. It\u2019s located on a wall in the French city of Marseille<\/h2>\n
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Sonja Anderson<\/a><\/p>\n

– Daily Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

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The new Banksy mural is on a wall beside a covered street in Marseille, France.
\n Viken Kantarci \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/span>
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After a five-month hiatus, Banksy is back with a new lighthouse mural in France. Compared to many of his previous works, the piece is uncharacteristically personal.<\/p>\n

The anonymous street artist announced<\/a> his latest creation in an Instagram post on May 29. Located on a beige wall beside a sidewalk, the black lighthouse appears to merge with a painted shadow of a nearby metal safety post. Stenciled over the artwork are the words, \u201cI want to be what you saw in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no official explanation for the phrase,\u201d write the Associated Press<\/a>\u2019 Thomas Adamson, Bishr Eltoni and Jill Lawless. \u201cBut its emotional pull is unmistakable\u2014a quiet plea for recognition, love or redemption.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Banksy\u2019s post appeared on Instagram with no caption, initially leaving the new mural\u2019s location a mystery. However, BBC Verify<\/a>, a team of investigative journalists and fact-checkers, quickly deduced that the mural is located on a backstreet called Rue F\u00e9lix Fr\u00e9gier in the French city of Marseille, according to BBC News<\/a>\u2019 Cachella Smith and Amy Walker.<\/p>\n

Reactions to the new artwork were mixed. As the Art Newspaper<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Anny Shaw writes, \u201cIt could be a defection from the commercialism he simultaneously critiques and profits from, but I guess I\u2019ve been made to expect more\u2014either by technique or by message\u2014from an artist whose entire practice, cheesy as it may be, is enmeshed in social and class consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Banksy has been creating street art around the world for decades<\/a>. Some of his most well-known pieces include Rage, the Flower Thrower<\/em><\/a>, a commentary on war, and Girl With Balloon<\/em><\/a>. The artist\u2019s works have sold for staggeringly high prices<\/a> at auction; his most expensive piece is Love Is in the Bin<\/em><\/a>, which fetched more than $25 million in 2021.<\/p>\n

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Last summer, Banksy completed a series of animal-themed paintings<\/a> in London, including a pair of elephants<\/a>, monkeys swinging from a bridge and a howling wolf painted on a satellite dish. Until the lighthouse, his most recent verified mural was a black-and-white painting<\/a> of a veiled woman breastfeeding a baby\u2014a reference to the Madonna and child\u2014which he announced in an Instagram post<\/a> on December 16, 2024.<\/p>\n

Much of Banksy\u2019s career has been \u201cpolitically charged,\u201d drawing attention to issues like Palestinian suffering and the refugee crisis<\/a>, writes the Art Newspaper<\/em>. For instance, his recent London animal artworks may have been \u201ca comment on the impact of humans on biodiversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Swinger<\/em>, a mural Banksy painted in New Orleans in 2008<\/p>\n

Infrogmation of New Orleans via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, the new lighthouse mural is a departure for Banksy, who \u201cseems to be getting more philosophical in his middle age,\u201d per the publication. His latest work could be \u201ca moment of rare self-reflection\u2014after all, this is the first time Banksy has referred to himself in the first person in a public mural.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody knows what Banksy\u2019s intentions were, though many onlookers have theories. The\u00a0Guardian<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Matthew Weaver suggests that \u201cI want to be what you saw in me\u201d may be a reference to a lyric from \u201cSoftly<\/a>,\u201d a 2001 country song by the band Lonestar: \u201cI want to be what you see in me \/ I want to love you the way that you love me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Banksy rarely includes text in his pieces. When he does, he \u201cusually incorporates extant signage or graffiti when adding his touch rather than writing out his own phrases,\u201d according to Hyperallergic<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Rhea Nayyar. \u201cThat being said, this particular text takes the street artist\u2019s already on-the-nose symbolism to another level,\u201d with the \u201cheavy-handed captioning\u201d coming across as \u201coverly sentimental.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome commentators have said that at best, the latest offering attempts to open a vaguely profound conversation about being a \u2018guiding light\u2019 or \u2018finding the light within.\u2019 At worst, it veers into \u2018live, laugh, love\u2019 territory,\u201d writes the Art Newspaper<\/em>. \u201cThis message could be Banksy\u2019s most personal yet\u2014but its execution risks it also being his most banal.\u201d<\/p>\n

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