One year ago, a curious intervention popped up overnight on the Williamsburg Bridge: egg-shaped swatches of green, yellow, blue, maroon, purple, red, and blood-orange lined the beams above the bike lane, a subtle yet peppy addition to commutes and weekend rides. Such is the work of Brooklyn-based artist Peter Brock, who founded the ongoing project known as Baji Lives! with the M.O. of brightening public spaces (and eliciting the occasional smile). Brock recruits so-called “collaborators” via email and his Facebook page, hoping to build a network of supporters to help make forthcoming schemes a reality. Last month saw the opening of the artist’s first solo show at Black and White Gallery in Williamsburg, which is on view through May 20.

The spots of Baji Lives! have found their way onto all sorts of surfaces: one was placed at the main entrance staircase at MoMA, a batch covered Columbia University’s campus, and several hundred invaded exteriors all over Berlin. Other whimsical interventions include swatches painted and cast from FGR plaster, which Brock hand-paints and embeds with superglue. Nicknamed “chillers,” the pieces have since morphed into a variety of forms, like the cartoonish doodads he fashioned for a New Orleans kindergarten class to paint in February, or the painted cement tiles snatched from the concrete shop where he works and placed on subway platforms and bus stops. Wherever they’re planted, these tiny aesthetic tokens invite viewers to be conscious of the urban environment. If they’re taken as a memento, as Brock intends, they serve as a constant reminder to scrupulously appreciate the stuff that surrounds us.

Freshly painted Baji Lives! circles, 2012. Courtesy of the artist.

Baji Lives! cement tile, 2012. Courtesy of the artist.

Baji Lives! cement tile, 2012. Courtesy of the artist.