That’s a lot of LEGOs!
As part of his goal to examine design, history, and what humans choose to value, artist and activist Ai Weiwei has established another exhibition exploring those themes at London’s Design Museum.
The exhibition contains a lot of different provocative and eclectic pieces created and collected by the artist. One of them has caught the eye of many: a re-creation of Water Lilies #1, the impressionist painting by Claude Monet. The Chinese contemporary artist did not use traditional art mediums, opting for a more… modern approach. He took 650,000 Lego blocks spanning 22 colors to create his work.
What’s different about his recreations is that they usually are underpinned with political messaging, to the point that LEGO once controversially refused to sell him any of their products. The Monet recreation has a personal detail that’s not in the original. Ai added a black portal that symbolizes the entrance to an underground dugout in Xinjiang, China, where Ai and his father, the poet Ai Qing, were forced into exile from the 1960s until 1976.
Closeup of Water Lilies #1 recreation by Ai Weiwei showing the individual LEGO bricks in the 50 foot mosaic.
Image credit: Ela Bialkowska / OKNO studio / Design Museum