VENICE – The appearance in the Lagoon city of a new piece of art shows all the hallmarks of Banksy’s mysterious hand at work, though the graffiti artist is yet to claim the work as his own.

 The piece, which seem to have been painted some time on Thursday or Friday, was spotted by artist and collector Lapo Simoeni on the island of Dorsoduro. It hovers above the waterline of a canal, and shows a migrant child, in a life jacket, holding a pink flair to signal for help.

 In addition to its mysterious and sudden appearance, and the style of the work itself, the theme is one that Banksy has visited in the past. In 2015, he painted Steve Jobs, son of a Syrian migrant to the United States, at “the Jungle” in Calais as a refugee, with a bin bag over one shoulder and carrying an Apple computer in his other hand. The work was called The Son of a Migrant from Syria.

 The main part of the 58^th Biennale runs May 11 to 24. It attracts around half a million visitors and displays some of the most prestigious works from the world of contemporary art. Banksy, if the work is indeed his, has not been the only artist to address the theme of migrants and refugees in this year’s exhibition, whose theme is “May You Live In Interesting Times.”

 Swiss-Icelandic artist Christoph Büchel presented a boat as an installation piece called Barca Nostra (Our Boat). The boat, with faded blue paint and rusting, had sunk off the Libyan coast in 2015, leading to the deaths of more than 700 people. Some have criticised the position of and lack of context for the piece, while others view using the boat for art as insensitive.

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