Os Gemeos Found Un-Harmed

All photos by nolionsinEngland


Greece is a battered country; battered by economic penury, politicians that can’t be trusted, lack of a properly functioning tax collection mechanism, corruption, cronyism, nepotism and that’s just for starters. If there is one thing the Greeks haven't wasted money on it’s The Buff. Every highway fence, roadside kiosk, every shop front, underpass and park wall is - like the economy - battered.




Most of my Greek graff spotting is done from taxis, it’s not often I get the chance to fit in a little bit of street culture. I spotted the decoration on the facade of this derelict apartment block (below) when heading towards Syngrou Avenue, the driver pulled what he called an “Original Greek” manoeuvre to zip back against the 3 lane flow. The piece exhorts us to “be water again” and is tagged Feo Flip. Flip is the artist behind the aquatic beast in the top photo, spot a theme?


fEO Flip


When it comes to politics, the Athenian writer delivers his message a bit rougher and more direct. Capitalism is crap says the first embittered red drop-shadowed piece below whilst a simple marker suffices to get the more direct message across in the second pic below.







A year ago I took an overground underground and passing through the Gazi area I spotted some low rise industrial units parallel to the track with some impressive murals, some relic of an old graffiti jam or possibly a part of Athen’s Prosopsi facade programme, a council supported project to brighten some of the crappier walls though I suspect they pre-date that. Stealing a daylight hour a few weeks ago I headed up to Gazi. I knew I was getting close when I found this pair of portraits by old favourites JNOR NDA and SidRon.


JNOR NDA, SidRon


Then the building I had seen from the train came into view with some nice mural work still mainly intact.


INO1


Technopolis and Cityscapes above are by INO1, perusing his website I see an outdoor piece called “Tit Job”, I shall search ceaselessly until I can report back to you with a photo.

[update: looking back at my last Athens blog post here I see I took a photo from the train of this very spot and I promised myself that I would find my way back some time in the future]

Other artists below are currently unknown to me.







Wandering around the other side of the building, the main highway side revealed a stunning surprise, sandwiched between a Nunca pair of portraits and a piece by Greek artist Same84 is a spectacular and virtually intact Os Gemeos mural.


Os Gemeos, Nina, Nunca, Same84



Os Gemeos


Jaw dropping shock would not over-state my gut reaction to finding this. An inscription attributes the mural to Nina, Nunca, Os Geneos and Same and dates it to 2005. The event was evidently a legal jam and Athens crew Carpe Diem who specialise in these projects are up on the credits. In a city where the crappy tag is so omnipresent, it is simply astonishing that this piece should last in such great condition for so long – six years!!! The state of the buildings opposite give you an appreciation of the respect this mural has been given.




That 2005 mural in full:


View larger here


A bit of Hellenic graff spotting wouldn’t be complete without discovering a gorgeous mural by Zap aka Alexandros Vasmoulakis, tick the box baby.


Alexandros Vasmoulakis


Finally, last week on another more recent trip, down Syngrou Avenue virtually opposite my usual hotel I found this Same84 mural which I suspect is very recent. Nice to keep finding the fresh stuff.


Same84


Previous Athens reflections here, here and here

OMT: Rollers, Stones and Athenian Graff

On My Travels


I travel on overland rail in the UK maybe a dozen times a year. Filter that for sober trips with a charged camera and I have more chance of winning the lottery than I do spotting graff on rolling steel. So it was with delight on my way to Gatwick that I spotted this beauty heading South somewhere near Croydon. Hot shit rather than crap tags, the piece on the left appears to be Gekoe, can anyone read the right one?


Gekoe and ? Thanks to Bravo99 for tarting up the pic


On to the Greek island of Kos en famille.   About a mile from our hotel, past the Italian hotel (bella, bella), past the German hotel (put ‘em away love) we came across a rather intriguing landscape of balancing stone piles. Reminds me of Richard Long's landscape natural work. I remember a few years back a micro-debate on a forum as to whether some geezer balancing stones could legitimately claim to be an artist. These piles were curious, effective, pointless, thought provoking and fun. Sounds like a reasonable definition of art dontyathink.






Technical note: Camera by Nikon; tripod - wastepaper bin from hotel.


Back to Athens and a short hour carved out of a packed week of indulgent corporate lotus eating (call that work?) was devoted to a quick whizz around Monisteraki , last explored two years ago and reported here and here.


A surprising amount of stuff found two years ago still survives intact, suggesting not so much tolerance as no budget for the buff.

A nice treat was coming across a large mural by favourite Greek artist Alexandros Vasmoulakis, no idea how old it might be though.


Alexandros Vasmoulakis


Street artist Pete always pleases the eye with his doom-laden shadowy portraits, hadn’t previously seen one directly contextualising the street as gallery in this framed style.


Pete


Unsurprisingly we found some more old stuff by friend of Graffoto The Krah.


The Krah


The Pete and Krah flicks above demonstrate the fabulous ambient surface textures, colours and decay that Athenians get to work on but it's not all crumbling ruins. Near the station on a clean and rather boring wall the unknown Greek street artist casts a wry reflection on the state of Greek society as the IMF try to bang some sense into the place.


Unknown


Speaking of the parlous state of the economy, one curious symptom is offered by Athens' proliferation of legal and illegal road-side advertising. Huge numbers of advertising hoardings across the city have been blanked out, I guess this is the advertisers not having enough paid adverts to cover up old ads when their rented time has expired, no pointing in letting the previous advertisers getting free extensions of their time I suppose. A second theory may be that the authorities are cracking down on illegal un-licensed advertising spots but too many of them looked like flash mechanised rotating jobs that would surely be too expensive to put up un-licensed. Most unlikely to be the work of an Athenian Posterboy copycat.




On the graff side, it was curious to see the major highway from Kiffisias to the Airport completely free of graff, every other dual carriageway is absolutely battered. The taxi driver told me that on that stretch of road any graffiti that appeared overnight was cleaned first thing in the morning and graffiti writers considered it a challenge and a major accomplishment to get anything there that lasted. Won’t take that route in future. More typical of the major routes into the centre is the well spanked appearance of this building.


OFK


Un-expectedly in a state implementing severe austerity measures and switching to taxation by guessing your income, and contrary to the earlier guess that no money is wasted on clearing graffiti or pursuing offenders, a somewhat lethargic buff squad was encountered off the beaten track though their effort didn’t stretch beyond peeling off the easy bits of ancient fly posters.


Athenian Buff, not Buff Athenian


One of the highlights of this whirlwind graff tourism was a couple of big arse booming roller jobs by prolific all-city LIFO. Sadly the camera had a hissy fit and deleted pictures of one up the top of Syngrou Avenue but this beauty overlooking the square outside Monisteraki tube has got it all, scale, crispness, drips and screaming the name in your face.


LIFO, Monasteraki


This visit to Athens was a bit hectic, spent mainly flogging up and down the coast road between Vouliagmeni, Castella and Piraeus with the train journey and short wander around Monisteraki being the only brief incursion towards the centre and North. A future visit hopefully will include a whizz down the street that runs parallel to the metro line between Petralona and Thiseou, the view from the train suggests everything from legal top to bottom buildings to pieces and roof top dubs and fire extinguisher jobs. If it happens you’ll be first to know.




The best of the rest of my flicks of Athens street art and graff can be seen here

Greek Missus and Leg-ends: Athens Graf pt II

The Parthenon, democracy, any song by Demis Roussos, this post about Athenian graffiti - one thing they all have in common is they never seem to get finished. Well here is part two, part one is either a little bit lower down the page or here.


Thanks to its intractable bureaucracy where even a simple house purchase requires the signature of a myriad of government officials and utility suppliers, religious leaders and acts of parliament, Athen’s crumbling ruins quite often collapse completely. The ghost building sites in these back streets provide a characteristic derelict ruggedness, the loose stone construction and failing flaking plaster enhances the charm of the sun faded art on the walls. And since no one cares enough to buff, the best and longest lasting art can be found here.


JNOR NDA



Unknown


In the same back streets, one vacant plot had a single story glass mirrored, errrr don’t know what it was about, some kind of two-sides-of a-square concept, the effect was that you could stand in one spot and simultaneously check the graffiti on two opposite walls, how coooool is that!

b., Alexandros Vasmoulakis, plus (TBC) JNOR NDA


Despite being an ex-pat London dauber for several years, the mark of The Krah remains visible in many Athens locations. Boy has he come a long way geographically and technically. On this first pic, note how the Athenian tactile parking habit has worn a horizontal strip away.


The Krah


Early Krah


For the benefit of anyone not aware – shame on you - of The Krah’s more recent London work:


The Krah – Foundry, Gt Eastern Rd, Jun 18 2008


JNOR NDA’s distressed figures deserve admiration, is the expression hang-dog or are they just falling short of the full 8 hours kip?


JNOR NDA, more here


This picture HAS to be shown if for no better reason than the height Lie has reached


LIE


Epic permissioned pieces seem to be few and far between, Alexandros Vasmoulakis is one of Athens’s more accomplished painters with a growing art reputation:


Alexandros Vasmoulakis


Though he can mix it up filthy, rough and ready when he wants to


Alexandros Vasmoulakis


Another painter who ranks among the best Street Artists is:


Pete, more here

Athen’s highways have three big plus features for this ancient civilisation’s street decorators, big walls, lots of eyeballs and again, no one cares so no real buff program. The highway walls tend to attract comparatively simple tags, nothing too wild.


Stik


rolks?

The main road, well, particularly Syngrou Avenue is crossed by a number of subway tunnels and here the tagging does get a bit wilder.


Barns


Stoner


Placement doesn’t have quite the significance to Athenian vandals as it does for street artists elsewhere. It’s a case of anywhere will do, though we love the exceptions!


Spit


Shutters don’t escape the Athenian public writer and there’s more than a just nod to UK’s Eine and Cept in a couple of compositions found


Unknown



Unknown

There doesn't seem to be as much of the grandstand hall-of-fame type of spraycan showboating you might get in other cities but the effect is a much more hurly-burly rushed and pacey style, total in tune with Athen’s character. The Athenian graffiti writer’s natural enemy is not so much the authority as the loose flakiness of the wattle-and-daub which make up the facias and internal coatings of Athens buildings. The sooner the authorities act to improve the longevity and earthquake resistance of the skims the better for all vandals.


Possibly JNOR NDA


All the work above is pure freehand can work which dominates on Athenian shutters and walls. There fewer stencils to be found


Unknown


And hardly any paste-ups, which seem to be associated more with cheesy nightclub acts and politicians.


Mute


"Mrs Poisonurse and Mrs nutcracker" - Dreyk The Pirate and Iquado


Congratulations if you have made it this far, and if you have the stamina, you could check out the rather large set of photos from these two brief whizettes around Athens, perhaps do it in stages?
BIG BIG PROPS to The Krah for pinpointing where I should look and for taking the time to go through all my pictures and identifying culprits, he’s a diamond and an awesome artist to boot. Props also to Alex-The-Greek whose love for graffiti comes on in leaps and bounds and whose willingness to ignore traffic codes is clearly in the Greek DNA, and to his brother for loan of the scooter. Thanks also to Ryunosuke who also flicked through the pics and helped with identification, view Ryunosuke's awesome photos here

It's All Greek To Me: Athens Pt 1

Over many years as London’s ambassador to Athen’s tavernas and bars, I have had the pleasure of observing quite a large amount of graffti, regrettably nearly always from the windows of taxis (when Athens taxis are moving it’s best to keep your eyes closed, thankfully they also spend a lot of time stationary). On my most recent visit at the beginning of June (08) I managed to carve out a few hours from my lotus eating schedule to jump on the back of a Vespa driven by my friend Alex-The-Greek and tour around creating havoc on the streets (and pavements) and photograph Greek graff.


unknown – indecipherable tag

Aided by an Athens map embellished by a bunch of loose fluid tentacle strokes courtesy of The Krah, it proved easy to locate several deep warrens of single track back streets, alley ways and bazaars crammed full of spray work.



Athens is sliced, diced and surrounded by a network of pedestrian-hostile highways, the deep walls holding back the embankments have proved an irresistible canvas for taggers and artists who generally need not fear passing foot traffic.


Captain Hook


I’d been seeing lots of swarms of evil grinning bees along most of these main routes, some of them even had psychedelic don’t mess with me colours.




Athens artist b. who has graced quite a few London walls over the past year or so but in his natural habitat, this is b.

b., Norjin

And these,

Hit, b.


b. and ?

And for good measure there is a lot more b. here

(where The Krah has helped with identification, that is 100% accurate; some of the attributions are my guess and may well be wrong – apologies in advance).

One artist whose stuff I have admired on flikr but never actually seen in real life is Joad. Her pieces proved to be a bit more elusive that I had hoped but the few I found were treasures.


Joad


Actually, I had come across a Joad last Autumn near the hotel I usually stay at, un-expectedly it was a plain but crisp block but look closely and the trademark whispy lines are present.


Joad, more here
ons in her comment - its a beauty:

Joad, Icnoc


The second installment of this Greek adventure will follow in a few days or so but if you can't wait or simply can't take any more words, then by all means just take a look at the pictures here.

Update: check out part II here