“Monumental Graffiti: Tracing Public Art and Resistance in the City”: Athens book launch 

Hyper Hypo and the MIT Press are launching in Athens, Monumental Graffiti: Tracing Public Art and Resistance in the City by renowned curator and anthropologist Rafael Schacter. The launch will be accompanied by a talk and discussion which will delve into graffiti’s role as a powerful form of expression, a challenge to public power structures, and a reimagination of graffiti as a contemporary monument in urban spaces.

Featured speakers Konstantinos Avramidis, Maria Chatzidakis, and Constantinos Diamantis, will offer insights into the Greek context and discuss the broader implications of graffiti on public art and urban resistance. The evening will conclude with a response by the author, Rafael Schacter, engaging with the presentations and expanding on the book’s themes of monumentality, voice, and visibility in public space.

The event is coordinated by anthropologist Konstantinos Kalantzis.

Also on view will be a curated selection of video works from artists Alexander Bavard, Brad Downey, Christian Falsnaes, FATZOO, Matthias Wermke, and the collaborative duo Wermke/Leinkauf.

About the Book

Monumental Graffiti challenges us to rethink the very nature of graffiti—not merely as vandalism, ornament, or art, but as a monument in itself. Schacter’s work invites readers to see graffiti through a new lens, redefining it as a form of public art that actively contests whose voices are included and whose are excluded in public spaces. By examining graffiti and monumentality in parallel, Schacter’s twenty years of embedded research offer a timely perspective on urban citizenship, public art, and contemporary resistance.

The book features the works of graffiti writers such as 10Foot, Delta, Egs, Honet, Mosa, Petro, Revok, and Wombat, as well as prominent artists like Francis Alÿs, Jeremy Deller, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jenny Holzer, and Cy Twombly, among others. This richly illustrated study draws from an expansive ethnographic approach, making it both a visually engaging and intellectually provocative addition to contemporary art scholarship.

Speakers and Contributors

Rafael Schacter is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at University College London and head of the Material, Visual, and Digital Culture subsection. He is the author of Monumental Graffiti, Street to Studio, Ornament and Order, and the award-winning The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti. Schacter has curated exhibitions at London’s Tate Modern, Somerset House, and many other galleries.

Konstantinos Avramidis is a Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Cyprus. He holds a DipArch from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, an MSc in Architecture and Spatial Design from the National Technical University of Athens with distinction, and a PhD in Architecture by Design from the University of Edinburgh. He has taught extensively at various institutions in Greece and the UK, most recently at Drury University and the University of Portsmouth. He cofounded the design research journal Drawing On and coedited Graffiti and Street Art: Reading, Writing and Representing the City (Routledge, 2017).

Maria Chatzidakis is a lecturer in the Conservation of Wall Paintings, street art, graffiti, and public murals, at the Department of Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art of the University of West Attica. Her research interests include Ethics in conservation; Education in conservation; Documentation and historical pigments. She has 35 years of working experience in the conservation of wall paintings, panel paintings, and ethnographic objects. She is a member of the International Institute for Conservation (IIC), the International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art (INCCA), and co-founder of the Street Art Conservators (St.A.Co.).

Constantinos Diamantis graduated with an MA in Visual & Media Anthropology from the Freie Universität Berlin; he has been involved in the graffiti scene since 2000 and is a documentary film director. In his PhD research (University of Thessaly), he works on collective memory in the digital era, collaborating with urban communities to create interactive stories.

Konstantinos Kalantzis is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Thessaly. He is the author of Tradition in the Frame: Photography, Power, and Imagination in Sfakia, Crete (IUP, 2019) and the director of ethnographic films, such as Dowsing the Past (2014) and The Impossible Narration (2021). He has taught at universities in the US and Europe and has published extensively in the fields of visual and social anthropology. He has organized conferences, seminars, and photo exhibitions. Kalantzis is a recipient of the Royal Anthropological Institute’s J.B. Donne Essay Prize in the Anthropology of Art.