THE GRAFFITI COVERING OF THE NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS AND ITS POLITICO-CULTURAL SYMBOLISM

• Main Author: Konstantina Drakopoulou
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: ARTIS- Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa 2018-01-01
• Series: Art is on
• Subjects: graffiti; trauma; destruction art; emergent democracy; community life
• Online Access: http://artison.letras.ulisboa.pt/index.php/ao/article/view/140

Artistic activity which violates urban space is based on the aesthetics of vandalism; it underscores the emergence of the artist as a guerrilla fighter and a defacer, reminiscent of art practices developed during the historical and the post-war avant-garde. The intervention of three graffiti artists, who completely covered the southern annex facades of the National Technical University of Athens’ neoclassical building with large-scale black and white abstract patterns in March 2015, can be understood within the framework of trauma theory and destruction art, as explained by the art historian Kristine Stiles. The writers’ choice to intervene in the Athens Polytechnic in the Exarcheia district―both traditional enclaves of political protest―as well as the morphology of the pieces themselves arising from bottom up mutual interactions with no underpinning organising principle, need to be interpreted on the basis of the political model of emergent democracy. The objective of this correlation is to exemplify how the graffiti writers’ self-organizing behaviour during the production of the works can be viewed within the workings of political movements. This brand of politics, the self-organizing of local communities and collectives, may prove to be extremely apt in recognizing and improving troubled domains of community life, especially today when Greeks are facing a traumatic crisis.