IF YOU’VE LIVED IN A MAJOR CITY for long enough, you’ve probably had a moment where you were walking down a particularly gray and drab street to be suddenly greeted with a fantastic burst of graffiti color. And in that moment, it’s quite likely that the word that ran through your mind was not “vandalism,” but was “art.”
The beautiful thing about street art is that it has the ability to take otherwise drab or featureless places, and to make them interesting and engaging. Suddenly, the ugly walls of the inner city stop being community embarrassments, and start being points of communal pride. Here are 13 spots from cities around the world that have been transformed from boring or ugly walls into tremendous art. 
Pachuca, Mexico
Vila Cruzeiro, Brazil
Mexico City
London, UK
Washington, DC
Lisbon, Portugal
Buenos Aires, Argentina
El mural que nos recibe diagonal a nuestro nuevo lugar 📷 #BuenosAires #buenosairesstreetart #streetart #santelmo #Argentina #IgersBsAs #Igers #BsAs #Art #graffiti #huntgramargentina #Drops #Colors #Vsco #Vscocam #vscovisuals
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Berlin, Germany
Paris, France
#TBT @ rue Chapon💃🏻 #paris #paris03 #ruechapon #streetartparis #parisstreet #parisstreetart #urbanstreetart #urban #ストリートアート #マレ地区
Reykjavik, Iceland
Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne was fun! My first upload that’s not @vsco edited. All shot with the awesome film app @hipstamatic!