Some
days ago, the residents of Athens, Greece, woke up to a huge black-and-white graffiti
covering the historic Athens Polytechnic University. It was created during the
night, and as you can see, it is not a clumsy job. It needs time, craftsmen,
and money to create such a thing.
Who
did this? And why? And most importantly, why is everyone talking about it? And
not just talking about it; as is common for us Greeks, this has become a philosophical debate. This
time is about art. What is art? Is this art? For some people, this is not art,
because it is ugly. For others, it is not, because no one says so (it is not part
of an art exhibition, that is). For others, it is not, because it is vandalism,
an act of destruction.
But
why is everyone so uncomfortable? For various reasons, I think. First of all it
is bleak. If our journalists were more familiar with Dickens, they would use Bleak House in their headline puns. It
is bleak in a deep, depressive way. Some of us can see our troubles, our fears,
our worries, projected right onto these walls. No wonder we don't like it at all.
Moreover,
I think people are uncomfortable because they have connected it with fear. If someone is capable of going
along with such a large-scale project surreptitiously, this someone will do it
again. Are our monuments safe? It's all we have, you know.
Besides,
this particular building complex carries special significance for us. Athens
Polytechnic University was where on November 14-17, 1973, during the military
junta, the student uprising took place. Since then, the building has become a
symbol; especially during the demonstrations commemorating the 1973 uprising. It has seen countless sit-ins, protest
meetings, demonstrations, and in its quaint neoclassical majesty, notwithstanding
its wounds, it still stands there today keeping that tragic November night
alive.
This
graffiti is yet another wound. And in my opinion, this is art. True art kicks
us out of our comfort zone, helps us become part of the wound. It celebrates the wound. And, to paraphrase Williams Carlos Williams,
the famous American poet, a new coat of
paint / is one way of expressing it. However ugly this graffiti may be,
since people want to get rid of it so much, it may have hit a particularly raw,
raw, nerve.
Thank
you for reading.
