Dear all, I want to add my 500 cents here, instead of spending it on a lurvely souvlaki.

In many terms, I would agree that graffiti in certain senses is an abomination (tags and scrawls), but you miss the focal point of what is being shown, and, that a struggle takes place on many levels.

I myself have tried and failed at organising an exhibit of works, 1) it takes money, a lot of money which they usually keep, 2) people are only interested in their restricted genre of ART if you can call it that (oooooo that looks lovely OR ohhhh thats the French artist blah blah blah). 'No one cares about your point of view when it comes to art, you are not an expert' is usually what i get in response (as i have been told before, i can blow any of these fakes out of the water with the works i can create).

I do believe that the focal works here are actual art pieces, debateable upon your selective art genre or movement yes, but undoubtably talented people have created these works, have you ever tried to pick a paint can up to do something like this, i can tell you it is definately not easy and takes a lot of dedication to learn and create.

Now, my most outright anger at the whole situation is based on the following:
Your city gives nothing but toss about you and your interests, funnily enough, instead of embracing that this thing will never go away, and creating somewhere for these people to display and create their works, like yourself, they just want to catch them and punish them, concerned are they not that these kids live in a different age, a megolithic mass communication overwhelming broil of technology and information, where can they go, what can they do, the provisions for such kids in Athens is (forgive my French) FUCKING SHIT, if you are not interested in playing basket ball or football (and you urn for more artistic experiences), then dont bother, go to the local kosmopolis and become the latent zombie kids running around like hysterical hyenas who will soon get their first 200cc motorcycle and cut off the exhaust and rip around your street.



The people doing these works and making their mark are trying to say something, through the only channel which they know, no one has shown them any different, and most likely, no one will ever bother to try and look at this differently. PUNISHMENT is not the model of mankind, stop, think and realise that there are far better ways to deal with this than scourning.

PS.
The refurbishment of these old derelict houses also contains many irritants that i totally disagree with, who the hell do you think owns these houses, the rich, and if they really dont care for such architecture (which i think is totally stunning) tear the fucker down and put an
apartment block up, that will cash you in and let you build the next beach house for your oh so well treated kids.

There are far to many parameters to the modern day problems such as graffiti that we all brush over and ignore, so lets not throw our 2 cents in and try to brush the stuff which we dont like under the carpet, it just doesnt work anymore.

Kids are the ones that will inherit the future world we are currently building, treat them bad and ignore them, and dont expect any patientce and care from them when they do take things over in their later life.

Paul

Photos: Thank you to Konstandinos K