Famous anonymous street artist Banksy broke his six -month silence this morning and claims credit Via an Instagram message For a new black -white wall painting on a structured wall on another unknown location. In his characteristic way to respond to the existing environment, Banksy stated the silhouette of a lighthouse against a cream -colored wall, so that it serves as the improvised shade of a sidewalk bolder that looks strongly like a person.
Sprays of white paint come from the lantern space of the lighthouse and supplements the stencile white text that reads: “I want to be what you saw in me.”
It is a rare return to infusing text in its compositions, because Banksy usually includes existing signposting or graffiti when adding his touch instead of writing out his own sentences. That said, this specific text already brings the street artist on-the-nose symbolism to a different level.
It is a bit shocking to see Banksy see-whose entire schtick anonymity, cheek and donation rules both to themselves in the first person in his own work and admit to a certain degree of self-consciousness. But even with that all that work overly sentimental for something like that … empty? So clear?
“I have to face myself,” “You saw the light in me,” “I am not who you want me to be”-these are just a few of the universal, tired clichés that can be projected on the Scheuvel motif and the harsh caption.
The mural immediately reminds me of another street artist (perhaps a generous title) who is unfortunately productive about areas around the L -train line of New York City – 7Soulsdeep. If you know, you know … and for those who don’t do that, I want you to remember how nice it felt when it started to warm up again in April, but how difficult it was to cherish in the sunlight and fresh air when all that nice pollen filled your sinuses.
Although I do not suffer from hay fever, I do suffer from the hands of 7Soulsdeep, whose old -fashioned, fake deep, tweelines tags are scribbled over construction sites, building facades and sidewalks that are everywhere I turn as soon as it touches 42 ° F.
No, we will not ‘fall in love’ this summer. No, I don’t want to be “what you saw in me.” I am “evolving forever (D).”
If 7soulsdeep on the loverboy -end of the collapse spectrum is with a hint of “Where my hug at?”, Then Banksy has placed itself close by with the puber preaching of a free wallpaper app for the iPod Touch. He is perhaps the artist who has made the walled hotel on the occupied West Bank. But Banksy is also the artist who fragments his own artwork after it was sold for millions at an auction. I can only absorb the visual equivalent of someone who makes a microphone drop after a hugely overly critical discourse so often before my retina just stopping receiving information.
Whatever the case, there will always be people who find meaning, comfort, visibility and hope in this kind of content:
This new Banksy Mural is less a low-hanging fruit in sociopolitics commentary, and it certainly evokes a more vulnerable and personal touch than normal, but it is still a different episode in what feels as a series of work that is strengthened by both surveillance and media fatigue. Does anyone remember that tree wall painting in Finnish Park?
It could be a transfer of the commercialism that he at the same time criticizes and profits from, but I think I expect more – either by technology or by message – from an artist whose entire practice, cheesy as it is, is entangled in social and class consciousness.
I think he’s right, although … he should have to wants to be what I Saw in him.
