No respect? Perhaps, but street art still carries meaning

By Aimilios Charbis

“No Respect,” an ongoing exhibition at the Onassis Cultural Center in Athens, documents the graffiti and street art scene in the Greek capital and other cities around the country today.

Street art, as the name indicates, was born on the streets and fresh examples appear on a daily basis, with or without legal permission, on all sorts of urban surfaces. Carefully applied artworks and others including often deliberate, bold imperfections present their creators’ every possible thought or feeling. As a result, the idea of having an indoor graffiti exhibition at a prestigious cultural center could be considered risky.

However, any misgivings one might have disappear upon entering the OCC’s basement, where “No Respect” is on display. The space is the size of an industrial garage, full of designs by 40 artist representatives of the Greek street art and graffiti scene. Visitors might be surprised to see the basement’s floor, columns and even some vehicles covered with works of art. There’s also a “making of” video showing the process of how a piece of art is created, while one gets the impression that the “background” music was all but certainly chosen by the participating artists.

One of the works is an amazing portrait of a boy with a band-aid on his head, staring with something like fear in his eyes, which appears to have a hidden message. Sometimes the messages are presented in a blunt, even aggressive way, but those that such artworks do deliver are rarely uninteresting. Statements on anti-racism, the environment and perceptions of freedom are key elements of this street art exhibition.

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