It seems that in the last few days, everyone’s been talking about the Romania street art takedown. Numerous people from Romania and from the whole world have addressed this terrible issue and we decided to share a little light on what actually happened with the surreal artwork.
The NOM Crew which consists of Kero, Irlo and Obie Platon, three Romanian street artists, created a wonderful piece of art. The huge graffiti depicts Saint George fighting a Dragon. The artists picked the scenery after the closest location’s name near the Old Town in Bucharest, Saint George Square. The beautiful street art was the result of around 35 hours of work in pretty harsh conditions. It’s also an initiative of Iustin Moldovan and the Interesting Time Bureau.
After the work was completed, the church started to protest against it and asked for it to be erased or simply painted over. However, the artwork had nothing to do with the church and it definitely didn’t bother any of the Christians. On top of this, there are also tourists in Bucharest who took tons of pictures with it. The only thing that could be considered unorthodox about the painting is its surreal and unusual style.
Thereart.ro wrote the following on their website:
“[The painting] would risk being buffed, because the priest from the church near the wall complained it was disturbing due to its unorthodox representation of the battle between Saint George and the Dragon”
The church in Romania proves once more that it doesn’t have any cultural knowledge and that it is completely ignorant. Erasing the artwork broke artistic liberties and free-speech as well as negated the work of some good people who were only asked to do something incredibly beautiful for their city. It seems that in Romania it’s completely appropriate for the Church to erase beautiful works of art.
It’s hard enough to understand why in 2015 the church and its priests don’t pay any taxes so on top of that, something like this seems highly inappropriate. The authorities accepted the Church institution’s demand to paint over the artwork illustrating Saint George fighting the Dragon.
And because this is the golden age of the Internet, it’s no wonder that the internet reacted to the Romania street art takedown. However, the reaction came a little too late, given the fact that the beautiful surreal painting had already been painted over. Tons of users on Facebook posted numerous photos with the crime. However, nobody actually went to the place in order to stop the people erasing the mural.
The people on the Internet limited themselves to only some Photoshop images of the painting and while they do deserve their own share of respect for the good intention, this wasn’t enough to stop the church from removing the beautiful mural. I highly doubt that the people responsible for deleting the painting will browse the Internet looking for jokes about their inexplicable action.
All in all, the modern artifact was erased and the liberties of the Romanian people were attacked once more. The nice people in Romania already have to battle corruption, unemployment and poverty, they shouldn’t have to battle the Church institution as well. Maybe someday the church will mind its own business and stay out of what has nothing to do with it.
Below you will find some of the Photoshop images that have surfaced on the Internet.
Images source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
