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16.30 Skoufa, Phileon Café – I am sitting there to drink a cappuccino and to write a bit when...
Suddenly anarchists appear in Skoufa. People sitting at the outer edge of the café spring up from their tables and flee away from the street. Bricks fly. Car windows are smashed. Some pull even bricks out of their bags. They are all very tall, dressed in black and hooded. No face visible. A fierce force. No one dares to intervene. They leave behind a path of destruction. In a split second the windows of a luxury BMW, a Jeep and a Porsche are smashed. They are parked alongside of Phileon. Some women not dressed in black run along with the hooded anarchists. They wear as well masks. The group moves fast, like a throng or a swarm of hornets. The leave in their wake excited people behind. Some smile at the sight of the luxury cars having been damaged. Others are aghast. What is happening to the city of Athens. Excharchia is not very far from Skoufa corner Lycabettus. No police gives chase.
Only after the group has vanished down the street in the direction of Excharchia two policemen make their appearance on motor cycles, inspect briefly the damages and then speed off but in the opposite direction. They seem not to wish to give pursuit. Then journalists appear with video cameras and mobile phones by which they transfer the images. Then, finally a police car comes. The elegant man with tie of the BMW has been telephoning all the time. It was not clear if he had been sitting inside. He is not harmed from smashed glass.
It is amazing how calm everyone is taking the incidence but it is creating already waves of worries and anxieties. My mother in law phones at 17.45 asking me where is my daughter. She hears reports about the anarchists having left more destruction in other streets than Skoufa behind. All this makes me think about what we started to discuss 
with Alexia about graffiti.
While some put this down to sheer vandalism or mere scrawls on walls others are wondering out aloud as to what this development means for future life in Athens as the intensity seems to be on the increase with such incidences erupting without any pre warning or linkage to memorable days like the students’ uprising against the Junta and which has been commented upon on a yearly basis with anarchists taking to the streets.
hATTO fISCHEr
The link to her photo blog is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos
artastica: How do you define 'street art'?
zofka: I define “street art” as human creativity expressed in any form through different media, openly and freely in an urban context.
a: why do you prefer to call it 'street art' rather than 'graffiti'?
z: I prefer this label to “graffiti” because the latter has inherited the notion of “scripture” and is predominantly linked to the medium of spray can – “spray can art” being, in my opinion, the closest synonym to "graffiti" – whereas “street art” includes all imaginable media whether it be spray cans, all kinds of paints, stencils, collages, chalk drawings, stickers, mosaics etc.
et and elsewhere in this city.
s they are allowed to work on, and avoid such mistakes as the one referred to in the BBC article, among many other benefits.
The image depicted a scene from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, with Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns. It had become one of the most famous graffiti paintings by the artist.
Transport for London said a tough line had to be taken on graffiti because it created an atmosphere of social decay. The Pulp Fiction mural was visible near Old Street Tube station. In place of the famous image, another graffiti artist has spray-painted the words "come back" in large letters.
Banksy has become one of art's hottest properties, with Angelina Jolie and Christina Aguilera among those who are reported to have splashed out on his work. George Thomas, who owns a barber's shop near the site, told the Independent the image was a "real draw" to the area. "People used to come from all over to see it and photograph it," he said. "There is no way it could have been mistaken for graffiti. Whoever destroyed it is an idiot." 
Our graffiti removal teams are staffed by professional cleaners not professional art critics 
Spokesman
Transport for London
Lost Banksys
In March a wall mural in east London by the artist was almost entirely removed by thieves. One of Banksy's early murals was mistakenly painted over in the same month by Bristol council's graffiti-removal contractors.
And in February two smaller works in London were also painted over. Commenting on the latest incident, a spokesman said Transport for London had to take a tough line on removing graffiti because it created a "general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages crime".
"We have no intention of changing this policy as it makes the transport system safer and more pleasant for passengers." The spokesman added that the company recognised that there were some who viewed Banksy's work as legitimate art but that their graffiti removal teams were "staffed by professional cleaners not professional art critics". Last year Banksy left a life-size replica of a Guantanamo Bay detainee at the California theme park Disneyland. And in 2005, he decorated Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side.
Source: BBC ONLINE
Part of an artwork commissioned by the Athens municipality to create a message for European No Car Day (September 22) in 2005. It was created by some of the world's most famous wall artists, Brazilians Os and Gemeos, who worked alongside Nina and Nunca - also Brazilians - as well as with Greek artists Woozy, Same, the OFK team, Jason, Live2 and Nade in order to achieve this extraordinary result. The giant graffiti's main subject is "Smart Moves for a Viable City." Indeed, the artists have managed to communicate in an original manner that car-mania and a high level of quality of life are not compatible.
Dear Ed,
we had a similar discussion in Germany, at least amidst all Greens interested in cultural policy. This was at a time when the Greens were still forming the government together with the Social Democrats. Otto Schily, then the Minister of Interior, proposed to have graffiti artists be chased by helicopters. In the debate it became quite clear that the Green Party had amidst its members and supporters many more house owners than those who started off from the student movement, went into the anti war protest and ended up practicing alternative living forms. That was 1967 – 89, a period which ended with beautiful murals depicting on the one side of the Berlin Wall what fast changing images projected on a wall which divides not only a city but its people can mean to the other side where there was no such artistic freedom of expression. Instead many voices pleaded like you do for no understanding and even to chase if not with helicopters then with a hayfork those night bandits away before they can do further damage to the walls.
You remark quite rightly so what defacement newly restored buildings especially in the Plaka but not only there face once some scrawl is sprayed rather than painted on the walls. It is a kind of vandalism not only on private but public property. However I say ‘vandalism’ with great reservation for fear of a misunderstanding.
Let me start from another angle. So far I believe the Metro of Athens has been kept free of such kind of vandalism. It seems as if Athenians take pride in this new system and so everyone takes care. Such public support is important as the costs go into the million if windows are scratched, seats slit open and all kinds of signs sprayed against doors, walls and platforms.
In all cases I would not begin such a discussion with the kind of ‘zero tolerance’ policy like statement as if police and chasing those committing this kind of vandalism is the only answer.
First of all you react to Alexia’s call for photos of not just any graffiti but which have an artistic demand. As you know graffiti artists pride themselves in the work they do. They even attach a copy right to their work. No one else is allowed to touch it (contrary to the paintings on the Berlin wall where everyone could paint over the older ones). They do follow and keep their own rules but rules nevertheless. It is important to recognize this category of graffiti artists before you generalize everything into vandalism. Moreover there is now a new law in Germany with regards to the possibility or not of claiming damages if the graffiti destroys the substance of the house rather than being just on the surface. Also there has been made efforts to provide public space for graffiti artists to express themselves. Especially people like Bob Palmer, director of first Glasgow and then Brussels when Cultural Capital Cities of Europe, made sure that space was given for such kind of expression. This takes me back to my initial remark: public ownership of public spaces is one thing, creating a confusion between spaces quite another and graffiti of different categories have to be included before we speak about vandalism since there is also political protest, sheer outcry of helplessness, and revolt against the omnipresence of consumer society linked to tourism that has altered the images and spaces of cities. So I would not lump everything together and leave at that. Any sensible reaction has to be differentiated and in the spirit of the enlightenment attempt also to reach that youth left in silence so that they scream out at night what they think no one wishes to hear. Like alcoholism you don’t resolve it by taking away
the bottle; you have to look at the reasons behind such often pointless screaming but screaming nevertheless.
If children and youth can adopt monuments and begin to deal with by writing different texts about them, then the interface of that building with the street and the life in that street will alter. Public ownership means then becoming responsible for the upkeep of these buildings.
I think furthermore there is a land use policy especially here in Athens which destroys more of the historical architecture since the coalition of interest is not the upkeep of the city but the speculative making of a lot of money from ownership. That leaves little or no playfulness in between the big and small buildings. Rather they stamp the local environment with their specific brand.
A reply of those who have no consciousness about anything can only scrawl as it is like a memory mark, absent minded and really an indication of how suppressed they feel by the uniformity of the environment which surrounds them. Especially in areas which are depleted, down graded and lonely it can be observed that this scrawl increases in intensity. And I don’t think this is merely a reflection of the interface between individuals, groups and the rest of the city having become too distorted to call it still a proper communication (most Greek children complain how little time their parents have for them to talk) but also what is happening inside the houses with neglect being shown how things are discarded and disorder rather than any kind of human order existing. Even television with its multiple images flashed out to advertise this or that can but confuse the mind. There is no culture. Culture is at a still stand.
That is why these scrawls are fore most signs of human pain being screamed out at night all in silence. The helicopter noise would cut through that silence but only frighten away the birds and awake those already asleep but it would not resolve the problem.
A solution begins by letting especially younger people adopt the streets and the city in which they have to grow up so that they can with the years feel a responsibility for what is going on. It takes time until even the own room is a place of personal identification rather than a mere protest against what the parents tell one what to do.
In brief, furthering understanding through highlighting the difference between a scrawl and a truly artistic graffiti work is a beginning to foster an understanding for crucial differences in the artistic freedom of expression. It means exactly this: not anything or everything goes but for those who scrawl they have first to learn to make up their own rules and how they will respond if one of their members breaks such a rule like ‘you should not scrawl on restored buildings’. As we all know if rules are not kept then the rule itself needs to be changed. It is difficult to bring about a morality of aesthetics but nevertheless we can try by approaching graffiti and lessons written on walls with a public debate.
You made here a valuable start.
Hatto Fischer
POIEIN KAI PRATTEIN
Coordinator
Lycabettusstr. 23
Athens 10672
Greece
Tel. 003 0 210 36 17 792
Mobile 003 0 697 45 39 333
e-mail: hfischer@poieinkaiprattein.org
ntown Athens just reinforces it.
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