Athens through the eyes of artist Cacao Rocks and photographer Dionysis Andrianopoulos
"The city is a project carried out by all living there. We create it, and it creates us."
We met with Iason (Cacao Rocks), who spoke to us about his relationship with the city and how he creatively converses with all that makes it up.
Dionysis introduces us to Jason's works through his photographic lens and his view of the city and its everyday life.
Project, experiences. Observation, creativity. A love affair with the city through images.
Backyard Opera Athens (BYO): Tell us a few words about yourself.
Cacao Rocks: I was born in Piraeus, but my mother is from France. My father is the sculptor Giorgos Megoulas. In my family, we are four brothers. When I was 12 years old, we moved to Corfu. I returned to Athens for my studies and have been living in the centre since then. As a teenager, I've always been creative, painting on walls and now more on canvases. Most people know me by my nickname "Cacao Rocks", but I would like to be called "Yassonas", which is how the employee wrote "Jasons" on my French ID.
Διονύσης Ανδριανόπουλος: I am a graphic designer and photographer. I live in Athens.
BYO: Is the city a canvas or part of the work?
Διονύσης Ανδριανόπουλος: Both. Macroscopically, it is a social, political and existential expression. A project carried out by all of us. We create it, and it makes us.
Cacao Rocks: Athens is a project in itself. A project that we have all been making together for two thousand years. I doubt the paintings we do in public spaces will be around in the next 50 years due to the natural wear and tear of the weather. Few wall paintings survive from the olden days. Ancient imagery has been hard to find, and we know it only from descriptions or copies, such as those of Pompeii. However, the murals have been immortalized by photography, which has also become digital. If digital culture is saved, so will our murals. The city will probably outlive all of us unless it sinks after the ice melts and becomes a field of fish and algae.
BYO: Why do you use the city and urban elements to create? Would you want to change something, or do you like it as you see it?
Cacao Rocks: My intention has always been to make the city more beautiful and humane, even a corner of it. That's why I chose the most abandoned parts of it to create. I was interested in communicating with the passers-by and getting some thumbs up. In the early years, the career perspective did not exist. These started after social media. Now street artists are influencers, which I don't consider immoral. Still, I'm trying to move more towards art and painting, so in recent years I've been spending more time in the workshop and not on the streets; of course, the unique condition of the pandemic affected this too.
BYO: There is a considerable debate about 'pollution' vs a landscape in which everyone has the right to intervene. Any comment about that?
Cacao Rocks: The issue is the artist's intention. Suppose the artist wants to vandalize or beautify the city. Pollution is in any case. Sprays are very harmful to the environment, so I've been avoiding them for the last few years.
BYO: Do you like Athens as a place to live and create?
Διονύσης Ανδριανόπουλος: My relationship with Athens is like a parental one. It is given and strong, but I always want to overcome it.
BYO: When did you start creating on the street? Were you inspired by something you saw?
Cacao Rocks: I was influenced by my older brothers, who skateboarded. I was flipping through their magazines and seeing the Los Angeles ramps full of drawings and letters. Around the same time in 1993, I saw on MTV Bart Simpson spray painting a wall at his school, and I wanted to do it too. In 1997, my aunt from America brought me a red WAIKIKI brand blouse that had a print of a monkey doing graffiti on the back. It instantly became my favourite shirt and made me realize that graffiti is a significant phenomenon. By now, I had started to skate and was slowly making my first signatures. I wrote Jay-man at first, then Briz and much later Cacao. Also, a significant influence of mine was the Hip-Hop group Terror x Crew. And I also wrote TXC in Piraeus when I was 12 years old, without knowing them personally. When I went to high school, I moved with my family to Corfu, and I was probably the first to do graffiti on the island.
BYO: What has changed in the aesthetics of the city in recent years, and how does this affect your work?
Cacao Rocks: During the crisis, there were too many closed shops and abandoned buildings even in the city centre. It was the perfect surface to paint on. Now there are not so many free surfaces in the centre, but the shops that open ask the artists to decorate them. That makes the street art a bit more sterile, sometimes better or neater. But indeed, the pieces that will remain in history are the ones that took place during the crisis.
BYO: Do you like Athens as a place to live and create?
Cacao Rocks: Yes, Athens is my favourite city in the world. That is where I was born and when I'm away my heart aches. Of course, its people are cruel, and as the city grows, it becomes wilder. But I wouldn't trade it for any other, maybe Lisbon or Paris. Once documents on the walls that Athens is the new Berlin. Now I believe it will become something like Miami. In a few years, people from all over Europe will live in a big city next to the Sea and rollerblade in their swimsuits. We still have a way to go for that; let's get the subway done first.
BYO: What is the response of your works in the world? Do you think there is a connection?
Cacao Rocks: The world in recent years has embraced street art in general. Yes, there is a connection. I get messages from all over the world on Social. Although in recent years, there have been too many street projects that passersby didn't make much of an impression as they did ten years ago. In the early 2000s, art in the centre of Athens was like a sticker stuck by some alien at night, and it had a magical aura that mesmerized the passersby; now, most people, even when walking, are looking at their mobiles. That magic is gone. Maybe they appreciate street art as a background for their profile picture, which I don't judge.
BYO: Are your works political or art?
Cacao Rocks: I wouldn't say it's a political position. Art is one thing, and politics is another. Think of a politician painting in parliament; it would be funny. It's another job, one and another. It is best not to enter each other's fields. Serious art cannot do propaganda; art is concerned with eternal issues like love, beauty, and life. The differences between people who will have power and whether one oppresses the other are serious issues, but they are matters of politics. And artists have to deal with them, but when art becomes propaganda, it ceases to be timeless. They can simply Tweet or protest. Of course, I have written many slogans on the city streets, especially during the crisis years. But I don't consider these slogans art. Look at Mayakovsky's political collages; they have been forgotten, and Western art centres now treat communism as something picturesque. But Mayakovsky's love poems will be sung and touch people's souls forever. This purity and love that art offers is perhaps something that can change the world. Then yes, being an artist is a political act in itself. If an artist now wants to make political art, he can go into the political arena and join a union.
BYO: Our lives, the people who live in big cities (as pace, attitude, choices, and energy) affect our aesthetics and culture; Do we know/remember to enjoy and communicate?
Cacao Rocks: Now, our aesthetics and our lives have been affected by digital media. People spend 8 hours in front of computers at work, an hour on their cell phones on the bus playing Tetris, 2 hours on Social Media and some Netflix before bed. They receive so many thousands of images daily that the city looks dull in front of this digital "kaleidoscope."
BYO: What attracted significant media, such as the New York Times, BBC, National Geographic etc., to your work, and how did that affect you?
Cacao Rocks: I wouldn't say it affected me. Maybe this report about me in the international media gave some prestige to my work in the eyes of others, especially abroad. Perhaps I am the only Greek who has been on the cover of the New York Times and National Geographic. But this did not change my life or my work. I was more interested in promoting Athens and Greek art abroad, but I cannot say I have felt any recognition.
I still use public transport and live in my little laboratory. Painters are not like actors or singers; they are a humble manual profession. Last summer, the Deputy Minister of Tourism called her office to congratulate me on my work and effort to help our country's image abroad. But I don't know if that means anything.
BYO: Tell us about any project you are working on at the moment?
Διονύσης Ανδριανόπουλος: Lately, I've been trying to create a more realistic dialogue with what I do without idealizing anything. I think the world has lost touch with reality, and it is essential to find it again. I photograph the youth culture in Athens, wrestlers, the city, everything that catches my attention to love and appreciates them more. Within the following year, I intend to deal with publishing some photo books.
Cacao Rocks: At the moment I am preparing a solo exhibition and a book. But mostly, I'm looking for a workshop because I, too, fell victim to gentrification.
