17 Awesome Works Of Art In Unexpected Places
Art is everywhere around you, you just have to look a bit closer. Check out some of our favorite amazing and surprising pieces of art around the world and help choose a new beautiful smart car design by voting for your favorite wrap.
1. The Glue Society’s “Hot With a Chance of a Late Storm” in Sydney, Australia
This melty ice cream truck was part of the 2006 Sculpture by the Sea fair, and strawberry flavored!
2. Espo’s “I Love You” mural on a Philly rooftop
This blingy mural is only a small part of Steve Powers (aka Espo’s) larger “A Love Letter For You” project, which adorns dozens of buildings meant to be seen most clearly from Philadelphia’s Market-Frankford Elevated line.
3. A Zebra-wrapped car among its striped friends in the wild
This smart car’s sweet pattern may be camouflaged out in the wild but there’s no way it would pass unnoticed in its natural habitat. If you think this wrap is cool, you can help choose the best design wrap for the convenient smart car by voting for your favorite here.
4. Kelly Goeller’s “Pixel Pour” in New York
8-bit style visuals and this unused spigot come together in a perfect pairing to mimic water frozen in time and space.
5. Megx’s Lego bridge in Wuppertal, Germany
German street artist Megx throws a little dash of childhood nostalgia in this colorful bridge painting - can’t believe no one had ever thought of doing this until now!
6. Anish Kapoor’s “Dismemberment, Site I” in Kaipara Bay, New Zealand
Anish Kapoor is known for his larger-than-life vinyl sculptures. This giant megaphone-shaped piece lives at the Alan Gibbs Farm, which is home to cows, goats, and stunning oversized sculptures.
7. Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari’s high art billboard on New York’s Highline
Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan had claimed just months before this billboard went up that he was retiring from art forever, but it looks like he couldn’t help himself. Though it was only up for a few weeks in May and June, we’d like to think it brightened up the days of many pedestrians strolling along New York’s Highline park.
8. The entire Stockholm, Sweden subway system, turned into a giant underground art gallery
This underground red forest is one of dozens of works of art exhibited under the streets of Stockholm: some 140 artists and 68 miles of underground make this project the largest art gallery in the world.
9. Magda Sayeg’s yarn-bombed bus in Mexico City
Yarn-bombing has gained popularity over the last few years, but no one has quite been able to equal Magda Sayeg and her large-scale works like this bus.
10. Sebastian Preschoux’s string installations in Brazil
Making sculptures out of string may sound like a walk in the park, but Sebastian Preschoux’s precise execution and use of space and color make his enchanting pieces impossible to replicate.
11. Elmgreen & Dragset’s “Prada Marfa” installation outside of Marfa, Texas
Imagine driving down a two lane highway in the middle of nowhere in Texas, nothing but endless fields on either side when all of a sudden you see a building in the distance. And that building is a Prada store! Whaaaaat? This installation by the Berlin-based Elmgreen and Dragset isn’t actually a functioning store but meant to serve as a delightful surprise for West Texas travelers.
12. Joshua Allen Harris’ inflating bag sculptures in New York City
The same gusts of warm wind that famously surprised Marilyn Monroe when they inflated her skirt decades ago were put to good use by Joshua Allen Harris when he created lightweight sculptures out of plastic bags which come to life with each passing subway.
13. Brian Goggin “Defenestration Building” in San Francisco
de·fen·es·tra·tion [dee-fen-uh-strey-shuhn]: the act of throwing a thing or especially a person out of a window.
14. Slinkachu’s “Little People” miniature installations all over the world
Slinkachu’s tiny and spontaneous installations all rely on their surrounding, making these minuscule works of art all the more charming.
15. David Ellis’ floor mural on the ground in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood
What looks like swaths of colorful sidewalk when walking below turns out to be a colorful painting when seen from above - art hidden in plain sight.
16. Money.less’s rope sculptures
The artist known as Money.less sprinkles landscapes and abandoned buildings around the world with his geometric rope sculptures using an unknown technique that is often so pristine his work seems photoshopped.
17. Liesbet Bussche’s “Urban Jewelry” project in Amsterdam
Liesbet Bussche’s artist statement is super simple: “My art is about jewelry.” For her “Urban Jewelry” series, Liesbet took to the streets of Amsterdam, transforming banal city structures like stop signs, light posts and street dividers into pieces of jewelry fit for a giant.
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