Writing on the wall
When I was in Athens in 2005 I found myself drawn to the street art which had started to grace the windows of empty shops in central Athens. Looking at these images six years later I can’t help feeling they are an incisive comment on the consumer society and the ills that attend it.
Surely this angry fish prophecies the protesters who were to take to the streets some years later and express their anger against Bankers and the Government.
A turbulent sea expresses the looming international economic crisis that will engulf the world and Greece in particular.
This poster fragment merging with the distressed plaster hints at antiquity. All of these photographs were taken a short distance from the Parthenon.
I was impressed how all this spontaneous street art had gravitated to the empty commercial premises as if inescapable truths were being revealed.
This sticker sat comfortably with the fluid art as if it was an explanation of the work in a gallery.
In every city in the world it is possible to find an imprint on walls which speaks of contemporary issues. The impermanence of these rude imprints raises fascination with them. Its something you don’t want to miss.
The undressed mannequins in this clothes shop window seemed to resonate with the messages painted onto adjoining empty premises.
This juxtaposition of the credit cards, artists paint and the empty shop perhaps says it all.