Most of us think of graffiti as an urban art relegated to back alleys, rap album covers and all of New York City in the 1980s. But sometimes an artist comes along who proves that with enough creativity, vandalism can transcend typical scribbles and dick pictures on the wall. OK, maybe we spoke too soon about the dick pictures, considering ...

#7. The Penis Bridge


As any novice vandal can tell you, the key to a good public penis drawing is execution, and nobody has executed a better one than the Russian art group Voina. When Russia hosted an international economic forum, Voina decided it was the perfect time to get their classy protest on. And just so you know who we're talking about, these guys once staged an orgy in protest of their presidential election, so you know they've got their heads in the right place.

In 2010, the group decided to paint a massive dick on a drawbridge in the middle of St. Petersburg, coordinating the operation so that they could sprint out, paint it and get back before security grabbed them. The result:




#6. The Barcaccia Fountain Ball Pit


Have you ever wondered what it would look like if you unleashed 500,000 colorful balls on an unsuspecting city? Of course not, you're neither a Batman villain nor a 4-year-old. And you're certainly not professional prankster Graziano Cecchini, who not only makes a living pulling stunts a frat boy would shit his pants over, but raises the money to do them on such a scale that we can't even talk about his work with starving African children. The awkwardness would be sky-high.

So when Cecchini decided to turn one of the most historic fountains in Rome into an enormous Chuck E. Cheese style ball pit, he went big. The video below shows the release of the balls down the steps as unsuspecting Italians narrowly avoid clownish pratfalls. If you watch closely, you'll see a middle-aged man gleefully dancing a jig at the top of the steps. That's either Cecchini or somebody with a medical condition we shouldn't be making fun of.




#5. Junk Griffin


Not every art school grad is frittering away his life at Starbucks and waiting tables, contrary to what probably springs to mind when you hear "art school grad." One group of London artists, set designers, sculptors and art directors pooled their collective talents that would otherwise be wasted on the food service industry into one big project: Robots. Specifically, robots made out of reclaimed wood, trash and other junk. When two Roboters traveled to America in 2010, they decided that what Brooklyn really needed was a 9-foot-tall moving griffin perched atop a dilapidated building.




#4. Street Art, Literally


You know how sometimes filmmakers leave their cameras out for hours to make time lapse videos? And the results look like really cool neon lights over a harbor or street or a baby turtle smoking a cigarette or something? Imagine if you could make that in a few minutes without a camera and without neon lights. All you have to do is slop tons of brightly colored paint on strategic points of a busy intersection and let the cars do the rest.





#3. Traffic Barrel Monsters


We've all been there, waiting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, already late to meet the probation officer, looking at the orange and white traffic barrels on the side of the road and wondering if they'd ever repair the damage you did months before in the incident that now requires you to visit a probation officer fortnightly. Most of us take a look at those barrels and think "flattened candy corns." College student Joseph Carnevale looked at them and saw an angry barrel monster hitching a ride. So, he made one and stuck it out by the street:





#2. Turning Soviet Statues into Superheroes


Don't get us wrong. We here at Cracked are as much about superheroes as the next guy, if not more so. But there's a fine line between painting your world in the colors of justice and just being a dick. At least that's what Russian officials thought when an anonymous Bulgarian artist turned a Soviet era war monument from this:





#1. Yarn Bombers


Carrying picket signs and getting Tased aren't the coziest forms of protest out there. Some people would rather just stay home with their needles and knit away society's problems. Sound crazy? You better believe it. They call themselves yarn bombers, possibly to add some badassery to the art of needling wool into afghans and baby booties. Some of the bombers have just run out of people to give their crappy scarves to, so they turned to wrapping their work around street signs and parking meters.

Others, like a woman who calls herself Olek, are full-on textile artists who get big time shows in artsy places. But that didn't stop her from giving the Wall Street bull the nice big pink and purple full body sweater you see above. Or this: