public art

Amazing illuminated art installations call attention to urban blight

Madrid’s Luzinterruptus collective’s large-scale light installations aren’t just haunting and beautiful — they’re also activist. Each piece is designed to call attention to some social or urban ill, from light pollution to nuclear radiation. Sometimes the targets are almost impossibly silly (sanitary napkins?), and sometimes the justification seems to have been reverse-engineered (are Madrid’s public […]

Pasadena gets to keep its giant fork

This piece of guerilla art was originally put up as a joke — Pasadena, Calif. resident Bob Stane made a lot of corny jokes about putting a fork in the road at this fork in the road, so his friend made him an 18-foot-tall one for his 75th birthday. It wasn't technically legal (the fork's […]

Bombs away: Yarn bombers get out-heisted in Boulder

Clever yarn bombers give Boulder's bike-share program some fuzzy PR-love by wrapping their drab kiosks in colorful hand-knit cozies. But the prank's on them when anonymous thread thieves nick the knitting one day before they're set to come off.

Urban acupuncture for a healthier city

Small-scale green spaces -- not huge, expensive projects -- are a good way to heal our cities.