Wynwood Walls Photos: Incredible Views of Miami’s Outdoor Street Art Gallery

December 6, 2024

Once an expanse of abandoned warehouses, Miami's Wynwood Walls has become, since opening in 2009, what the artist RISK has described as the "Olympics of street art." Developer Tony Goldman (who had previously helped transform New York City's SoHo and Philadelphia's 13th Street) had the idea of inviting the world's preeminent graffiti artists to turn the facades of Wynwood's buildings into canvases for eye-popping murals. 

The riotously colorful results were a smash hit, creating a sense of excitement and irreverence in the open-air complex that many traditional museums could never match. (It didn't hurt the eminently photogenic site's popularity that Wynwood Walls debuted not long before the 2010 launch of Instagram.)

Street Art Icons ($120), a new coffee-table book from Assouline, tells the story of Wynwood Walls from its start to the present, through images as well as commentary by participating artists such as Shepard Fairey, Maya Hayuk, Kenny Scharf, and Ron English. Wynwood Walls curator Jessica Goldman Srebnick supplies perspective on the legacy of the site's founder (and her father), Tony Goldman, who died in 2012.

Best of all, hundreds of photos—many of them previously unreleased—provide behind-the-scenes views of muralists at work as well as layouts showcasing the more than 150 works displayed at Wynwood Walls since 2009. 

Given that outdoor murals fade and are frequently replaced, the book's year-by-year chronicle of these ephemeral opuses in spray paint isn't only visually astonishing but also indispensable as a record of past artworks. 

For travelers, the book makes a compelling argument for heading to Miami to see what'll be created at Wynwood Walls next. 

Scroll on to see a selection of images from the book provided to Frommer's by the publisher. 

Pictured above: wide shot of a mural by artist Drik the Villain

"For most of us growing up stigmatized and criminalized for spray-paint art form, Wynwood Walls is an oasis for our creative mischief," artist Tristan Eaton is quoted as saying in the book, which argues that the outdoor gallery was the first meaningful exhibition center for a practice that had been previously maligned as vandalism and a blight on cities. 

Above on the left, Bicicleta Sam Freio paints a mural for the 2022 program "Future Starts Now." On the right, artist Defer works on a piece at the entrance to the complex for 2023's "Power of Purpose" exhibit.  

In 2019, Wynwood Walls commemorated a decade of creative works with a group show aptly titled "Ten Years." Dasic Fernández's painting for that event is pictured above. 

After closing for much of 2020 due to the pandemic, the site welcomed back artists in 2021—and, for the first time, visitors were charged a fee for general admission. Tickets (in late 2024) cost $12 for adults, $10 for seniors ages 65 and older, $5 for students with valid ID, and nothing for kids ages 12 and younger. Book tickets and tours (for extra fees) in advance at TheWynwoodWalls.com.

The identical twin brothers who create under the name HowNosm (seen here at work in 2012) got their start, like so many in their chosen genre, as teenagers painting names on train cars.

Does enshrining street art in a space like Wynwood Walls blunt graffiti's transgressive edge?

Maybe—but as Shepard Fairey (of Obama "Hope" poster fame) writes in a commentary in Street Art Icons, the populist nature of the Miami site gives artists a chance to reach a far wider audience than subway riders. "Complain all you want about public art being reduced to a selfie backdrop," Fairey writes. "The way I look at it, if I have the power to change the conversation by putting a subversive idea in something that one might at first glance consider shallow, fine by me."

Artists from more than 20 different countries have created work at Wynwood Walls, reflecting the project's international scope. The mural pictured above was painted in 2022 by Italy's Millo. He was inspired, he says, by humanity's relationship with the planet. 

Artist Ron English has created work at Wynwood Walls on several occasions, starting in 2010. His mural centered on what English calls the Temper Tot (a baby Hulk, essentially) was kept on a wall for 9 years until it became too faded. In 2023, English rolled out an oversize sculpture of the not-so-jolly green giant.

Photographer Martha Cooper has been documenting street art since it emerged in the 1970s and she was a photojournalist in New York City. She's been an annual presence at Wynwood Walls since developer Tony Goldman invited her to cover the first exhibit in 2009. 

In Street Art Icons, Cooper writes: "[Street artists] can appropriate any space, and the process of observing artists like Olek, Vhils, and HowNosm as they find that space, then gradually or maybe spontaneously turn it into art, is as creative as the finished work. I find it too exhilarating not to capture."

Above, Cooper captures artist Momo working on a mural in 2012. 

Street Art Icons: The Story of Wynwood Walls (284 pages, 317 images) is published by Assouline and available for $120 at Assouline.com, in bookstores, and from online booksellers. 

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