You probably read about the The Art of The Brick exhibition coming to South Africa soon (in Cape Town from December, and in Joburg from May next year). It’s not news, I know – many tech and news sites featured info from the press release last week, but I decided to do a bit more research about the exhibition and artist, just to give you something a bit new.
In case you don’t know though, the Art Of The Brick exhibition is one of the most popular LEGO art exhibitions in the world, and has been featured in galleries and exhibit spaces around the world. It features 70 sculptures, and is made up of more than one million LEGO pieces.
The creations have been done by New York-based artist Nathan Sawaya, who traded his law career for plastic blocks. His sculptures have no glue, paint or support – they are simply built. He uses the same LEGO pieces in the same colours, sizes and shapes that one would find in a toy shop
Art of the Brick has been called one of the world’s “must-see exhibitions” by CNN, and you can expect structures such as a 20-foot-long T Rex dinosaur skeleton and a giant LEGO skull. You will also find Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Van Gogh’s Starry Night and the Venus de Milo.
In an interview with Flush The Fashion, Nathan said that he first really started playing with LEGO when as a child, he asked his parents for a dog and they said no. He then used his LEGO bricks to build his own life-size LEGO dog. “It was one of my first “a-ha” moments when I realised that anything can be created from LEGO bricks.”
When asked what he thinks is so special about LEGO, he answered: “For me, LEGO is a creative medium. I can create whatever I can think of. I enjoy seeing people’s reactions to artwork created from something with which they are familiar. Everyone can relate to it since it is a toy that many children have at home. I want to elevate this simple plaything to a place it has never been before.”
Interesting LEGO facts
1 Every year, approx 19 billion LEGO bricks are made, enough to go around the planet five times. That’s also 600 bricks every second!
2 The world’s largest Lego Tower was 94.3 ft (28.7 m) tall and made using 465 000 bricks.
3 LEGO is an abbreviation of the two Danish words “leg + godt”, meaning “play well”.
4 There are 62 times more LEGO bricks on earth than people.
5 There are 915 million ways to combine six LEGO bricks.
Tickets to the Cape Town exhibition at the V&A Waterfront are available from www.computicket.co.za at R140 for adults and R95 for kids. Entry for children under two is free.
For more information visit the website at www.theartofthebricksa.co.za
