I grew up in a time when graffiti was taking its form as we know it now. It was considered profane to write on a wall, completely out of the rules of well behaving but it was carrying so much truth and feeling about what was going on around. Imagine it as a Stone Age twitter (in the case of social-political messages) or like the wolf’s marking of his territory (mostly in the case of football fans). In the course of time it evolved from slogans to painting. This evolution came out of the need of younger generations to beautify an urban landscape that was constructed hastily by the generation who having dealt with war and hunger, just cared to, as we say, settle a tile (roof) above its head.
While graffiti seemed to always be an object of confrontation between those who adored and those who were appalled by it, its evolution to big scale paintings that allotted color and meaning to the gray city walls, made most of the people to recognize it as an art form. Indeed one that we don’t have to search it in galleries but one that accompanies us and converses directly with our daily life.
About a month ago a graffiti came to life during the night, seemingly without anyone taking notice, on the outer walls of one of the most historic buildings of the country, right in Athens downtown. The painting that Athenians faced on the walls of the country’s anti-dictatorship symbol, looked as if it wasn’t made to beautify the city. Didn’t have a specific shape, certainly no color. Pure black, whitish and gray in an amorphous shape that to me looked like the army camouflage or maybe like the mental images of the collective unconscious of a country deep in its crisis era.
Did the
artist wanted to say something and what was it? He was nowhere to be found to
tell us. Some found his word as the definition of profanity, a sign of how into
degradation our life is going to. Some as a message or reflection of what is
happening in and to the country, a piece of art with a political message. All
of these can hold some truth. The things that impressed me was the way that a
graffiti of such a scale appeared like from one moment to the other. As if from
thin air. Then, as long as I remember the building-for sure the last two
decades-it’s full of graffiti and posters. So full that it again looked like
under camouflage, only more colorful, like the pallet of an abstract painter,
than the disposition of a country in the trenches of economic siege.
With this, complaints about the new graffiti sounds hypocritical -I quote a comment of Stavroula Panagiotaki, from Athens Voice newspaper, 19-25 March 2015, “Fortunately, they started cleaning the Polytechnic so that the worst graffiti that lie underneath but no one was talking about can become visible”. Of course, the scale of it, something like 100 square meters, justifies the bringing of the matter to the surface of public debate. And it makes an impression to me how the idea of the artist’s freedom to express, sometimes comes to action. I mean, am totally for the idea, it’s just that sometimes in my country we becloud the ideal of freedom with things like our right we give ourselves to impose to others things like the smoke of our cigarette in bars and cafes, even though there is a law against it.
Even though I often photograph graffiti, the whole fuss that was raised made me not caring to photograph the particular one. But it happened that one day I had to visit the Polytechnic University, so I took my camera with me. That morning I found the two outer walls veiled on green cloth inside of which the cleaning workers had just started their anti-spray project. I directed myself straight in the school, leaving this for the end. Finishing what I had to do in the offices, I strolled around the yards. At the same time the work team cleans up the graffiti that became first page, all the facades in the yards are full of graffiti! For me, it’s a playground, the canvas on which I create. In one of the graffities I read one of the Greek mother’s favorite quote: “What will the people say!”, and it seems to me that it describes best the current situation: Giving so much attention to what is visible on the outside without really caring of what is happening in the inside.
After I photographed the
graffiti in the yards, I walked outside to take a look at the “spraying block”.
Aligned on the pavement are the X marked chemical containers with which the
workers has started cleaning the walls. Who can imagine how much harmful
chemicals has this neighborhood submitted to the last decades, fires from riots,
teargas and graffiti cleaning agents. The latter might become useless, should
technology come up with a cheap nano-paint that will make a wall graffiti-proof.
But then I guess, nano-technology might come up with an antidote as well. The
thing is that graffiti is not a contemporary issue. It’s been with us since the
time we were living in caves. The thing is that in a way we’re still living in
there.
The nanotechnology thing sounds irrelevant
in this article but the not the cave thing. Because I strongly feel it’s
something we need to step out of, in mindset terms, in this country. You see,
the prevailing narrative in the press and commentators in my country goes a lot
like the following, from the editorial of Athens Voice newspaper, 19-25 march
2015, written by Fotis Georgeles: “The secret of Greece is that it grew fearful
of life, that it doesn’t love creativity anymore, love, dreaming. Full of fear
it seeks enemies to smite, the weak ones to impose on, the different ones to
hate. It intoxicates itself in violence so that it won’t have to face herself
in the mirror. She is afraid of what she’ll face. She kills her children and
commits suicide.” What can I say big guy, sure, you’re right but you know what?
Fuck this narrative! Enough with that. Not only we don’t need that anymore, we
strongly a new narrative, a new vision. Enough with the nagging and misery. I
want to see my country envisioning herself toward solutions.
The narrative I want for my country, sounds like this: “The secret of Greece is that no matter how difficult things could ever come to, no matter how much they tried to impose fear on her, she managed not only to survive but to thrive. Because her love for life, turned whatever difficulties and fears into creativity, love and dreaming. Even in the most hostile of conditions, she showed that she can respect and include all the aspects of human experience. The only things that she believes are worth being intoxicated to, are love –as it is expressed in the coming of spring after a hard winter- participation in a cause and the sense of belonging –as these are expressed in the circular chorus of people holding hands and dancing in the famous feasts (panigyri). Thus, no matter how deep in trouble she may find herself, she always has the courage to look herself right in the mirror. Because she knows that if there is something worth killing, it’s her bad self. And if at a moment she seems to you on committing suicide, the truth is that she’s just sacrificing her illusions and her comfort zone.
