Athens is the place to be... for graffiti

Like it or not, the writing is on the wall

by Maria Schirmer 8 Nov 2010






TURN JUST about any corner in Athens and you are bound to be bombarded by a brightly coloured assault of names, political slogans or animated figures splattered across the walls of concrete buildings.

“Athens is the place to be,” says Manolis, a publicity-shy artist belonging to Athens-based GPO, a so-called graffiti crew with an informal membership of between 10 and 20 sprayers.

“It is a paradise for graffiti writers.” Greece gave rise to the word graffiti - the term coming as it does from the Greek root graphie, meaning to write. But what role graffiti plays in the city of Athens’ aesthetic today remains a controversial subject. Some see it as rightful freedom of expression, others as a way to improve the city’s drab appearance, while others still insist it defaces property and depreciates real-estate values.

With local elections slated for November 7, the appearance of our cities inevitably forms part of the political discourse. Different cities have tried different tactics. Instead of taking a confrontational approach, the City of Athens development agency (AEDA) is embracing the old adage, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”. By working with graffiti artists through its Opsis/Prosopsi programme, AEDA is helping to bring colour to the dilapidated neighbourhood of Psyrri (see sidebar).

This graffiti’s OK
“The graffiti crew Carpe Diem came to us with a proposal to do large-scale murals on the outside of houses,” says Anna Svinou, who managed the programme. “This fit with Opsis’ goal of improving citizens’ quality of life.”

Carpe Diem organiser Kyriakos Iosifidis describes the collaboration with the Athens municipality as a dream come true for Greece’s first legally recognised graffiti crew, whose previous collaborations with government agencies and schools have brought colour to Greece’s concrete jungle.

The writers of the group, however, have not given up traditional graffiti.

“During the day, their actions are legal and at night they do other things,” says Iosifidis of the continuing underground graffiti scene.

Which begs the question: Is the city aiding and abetting vandals?

“We don’t think of it that way,” Svinou says. “As a municipality we are open to young people who have good ideas.”

Different strokes
But Athenians hold a variety of opinions on the value of this kind of street communication and what it adds - or doesn’t add - to daily life.

“Athenians have been expressing themselves, since the Nazi occupation and the military dictatorship in the ’60s and ’70s... We’ve been writing on walls to offer criticism and hope to our fellow citizens,” says Maria Pripodis, a member of Pegasus, an association in Neos Kosmos that beautifies the area with projects like tree plantings. “But the beautiful city I grew up in is gone.”

Actress and activist Anna Vagena in 2008 wrote an open letter to the mayor expressing concern about the growing squalor of Athenian life.

“Graffiti could be an expression of art, which I would like, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it on every single empty wall you come across,” Vagena says. “Graffiti in Athens today is out of control. If we lived in a tidy city, graffiti would break the monotony. But we live in a city of chaos: prostituted women and drug dealers. Graffiti, though by far not the most serious problem, does not help.”

For the members of GPO, graffiti is a way of regaining control over heavily advertised public space.

“Why is it OK for me to wake up in the morning and see a huge billboard out of my window that I never asked to see?” asks Manos, a graffiti artist who ordinarily works at a cafe in the city centre. “Because we can’t pay, does that mean our voice doesn’t count?”

Location, location, location
CITIZENS, graffiti writers and public officials alike can agree on one thing: where one does graffiti matters.

“In Greek graffiti, people should be more considerate about the space they choose to do graffiti. Some graffiti writers only do it to damage property,” says Manos, who belongs to graffiti crew GPO. “For example, I can’t write on the house of an old woman who has no money. This is pointless. I like to damage state property or abandoned buildings.”

Actress and anti-graffiti activist Anna Vagena does not want to silence protest, but objects to defacing traffic signs.

“This is not an expression of protest, believe me,” Vagena says. “I would like to be a part of the revolution, but it’s not a revolution when you write on traffic signs, when you cannot see where to go, what to do.”

Graffiti is a serious problem in Plaka because it destroys the facades of marble buildings, says Dimitris Kilaitidis of the Plaka division of the Hellenic Society for the Protection of the Environment.

“The paint seeps into the marble and is almost impossible to remove,” Kilaitidis says. “You need a lot of money to repair it.”

Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis has issued strong warnings against the destruction of historic monuments. “The mayor of Athens’ opinion is that graffiti destroys classical buildings,” says Anna Svinou, of Athens’ Development Agency (AEDA). “These old buildings say more than any person who puts up his or her sign there.”

Psyrri project aims to beautify

“AS MAYOR of Athens, I am exceptionally pleased because, in a few months’ time, the Psyrri neighbourhood will be unrecognisable - for the better - because it will be fully regenerated,” Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis said late last year.

This July, a pilot programme entitled Public Murals - Psyrri Regeneration restored the facades of three buildings in the Athens neighbourhood (photo).

Instead of just repainting the buildings, the city teamed up with graffiti artists from Carpe Diem.

“We loved the idea, found sponsors including Cosmote and ecological paint companies, found buildings in Psyrri and started working with ideas,” says Anna Svinou, the programme’s manager.

The materials used were environmentally friendly and have insulating qualities with UV filters to help protect the buildings against solar-heat gain.

The project was interactive from the start, with artists and graffiti writers canvassing the opinions of owners and residents of Psyrri on how they would like to see their neighbourhood.

“Carpe Diem wanted the people who live and work in Psyrri to be actively involved, and the end product reflects their opinions,” Svinou says. “[In one case] what started out as a bird on the drawing board became a flower on the wall of the Monastiraki metro station, because the people liked it better.”

Of tags, pastes and pieces

Tags
The classic form of graffiti is tagging. “You apply your name on a surface with as much style as you can. You do it quickly, in a risky place. These are the best tags,” says a member of the Athens-based graffiti crew GPO.

Tagging first gained public attention in 1971 when the New York Times published ‘Taki 183’ Spawns Pen Pals, an article about a Greek American who started writing his name across the city.

His tag, Taki, was the diminutive for Demetrius, and the number 183 referred to his address on 183rd Street in Washington Heights. “You do it to put your name all over the place,” the GPO artist says. “People criticise it, saying it’s like dogs that pee to mark their territory.

I don’t have a problem with that criticism because there is some truth in that.”

Pastes
These are drawings the artist does in his or her home or studio and then pastes them on the desired wall. This reduces the time it takes to produce the work, diminishing the risk of getting caught.

Stencils
This is a means of creating an image or text that is easily reproducible.

The desired design is cut out of paper, cardboard or other material and then the image is transferred to a surface with spray paint or a roller. World famous graffiti writer Banksy is known for his intricate stencils.

Piece
Short for masterpiece, a piece generally must have three or more colours. “To piece” can be used as a verb, meaning to go out to paint graffiti, and not just to go out tagging.



But is it art?
WHEN JERRY Goldstein, author of Athens Street Art, moved to the capital in 2006 after retiring from investment banking, he started exploring city streets with his camera, hiking the equivalent of Athens to Rome in just six months.

“I just took pictures of what I saw. I’m no expert on street art,” Goldstein says. “When the book was first published, a lady who I’d never met before called me up and said, ‘I really hate your book’.”

When he asked her why, the woman responded, “Because it’s full of angst.”

“It’s true!” Goldstein says, smiling. “I told her, but it’s young angst, which is a lot better than middle-age angst, and an awful lot better than old-age angst. So take it for what it is.”

But is graffiti vandalism, art or freedom of expression?

“The only distinction,” he says, “is in the eye of the beholder.”

Even calling it art doesn’t sit well with some graffiti sprayers.

“Art implies judges and critics,” says Manos, a GPO writer who prefers to keep his surname private. “You can’t let people judge you because then you become trapped in your style.”

Adds Manos: “Think of us as the guy who gets into the shower and starts singing without caring if he sounds good.”