Lego Art is more than a passing childhood pastime

Dinosaur Skeleton, 2007

Lego Art Exhibition

We were touring Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands development, a complex of leisure, entertainment and business destinations, including the ArtScience Museum, and discovered a Lego Art exhibition

Everlasting, 2010

This was the first time I had encountered this new and surprisingly combined Art and Lego concept exhibition.

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The Lego that I am referring to are the iconic plastic bricks that many children use to construct all sorts of toys, Star Wars characters and spaceships.

Art of the Lego brick

I am intimately knowledgeable about Lego only because the child in my home (my husband) is a huge fan.

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He has played with these bricks since he received them as Christmas gifts as an (actual) child.

Hands, 2007

Now, decades later, he has rediscovered his love of these bricks and has collected so much Lego that I find them in every corner of our flat.

I have asked him many times, “Why don’t you just make some furniture out of the spare pieces – at least make something useful!”

Legoland

Already, we were in Singapore as a stop on our way to visit… wait for this… LEGOLAND in Johor Bahru in Malaysia.

FaceMask, Self-portrait, 2009

I expected to be immersed in the world of Lego soon enough. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see more Lego when my hubby ushered us into the exhibition.

The Art of the Brick

“It’s art,” he said. “Uh-huh,” I replied. “We’re right here, and the exhibition is still on. It was meant to be!”

To my surprise and delight, the first exhibition hall for The Art of the Brick at the ArtScience Museum displayed some of the most intriguing sculptures made of Lego.

Awesome Art

Then, on and forward throughout the exhibition, I saw more and more absolutely awesome “art” pieces entirely made of Lego.

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Unlike the cartoon Lego characters I was familiar with, the show was filled with original creations, some whimsical, many thought-provoking, two and three-dimensional pieces.

Peaces, 2010

It was unexpected, and I was thoroughly intrigued.

We spent hours at The Art of the Brick, and it was a wonderful exhibition.

Global tour

“The Art of the Brick” has toured North America and Australia before arriving in Singapore.

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It is the only exhibition that I know of that focuses exclusively on art pieces made from Lego.

Parthenon, 2008

All the works were created by New York-based artist Nathan Sawaya.

He used standard Lego bricks to design and then create unique contemporary works of art.

Swimmer, 2009

Sawaya said, “There is no idea that cannot be expressed with Lego. As an artist, Lego is a great medium to create anything I can imagine. I still use those same rectangular plastic bricks that I had as a child, but now I try to use them in a way that hasn’t been seen before.”

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Just like my husband, Sawaya remembers the giddy feeling of finding a box of Lego under the Christmas tree.

Lego Art full-time

Like many, as he grew older, Sawaya had to put his bricks away and enter the real world of work.

He worked as an attorney, and only after a long time and with the realisation that he enjoyed building fantastic things out of Lego instead of being behind a desk or in a boardroom negotiating contracts, did he decide he wanted to be an artist full-time.

Blue Guy Sitting, 2010

He also came to understand that he could make a living doing what he loved doing best.

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This was the start of his creative journey and the making of the exhibition The Art of the Brick – the largest collection of his work, some dating back ten years.

Bob, 2011

Buying his Lego bricks just like everyone, his sculptures use from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of individual brick pieces.

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His life-size human form sculpture may take from 15,000 to 25,000 bricks.

Grasp, 2007

He has made an advertising billboard with 500,000 Lego pieces.

The quantity of Lego that he uses for each piece is detailed, along with captions for each piece.

Glue holds the Lego Art together

With so many pieces used in a sculptural piece, Sawaya had to add one more critical ingredient to his work to hold it all together – glue.

He said, “Since I ship sculptures all over the world, I now glue all my sculptures together, so they are permanent pieces. I find that museums and galleries get grumpy when they open a crate… and find a pile of loose bricks.”

Thinker, 2009

He owns more than 2.5 million coloured Lego bricks, so he has no shortage of material to work with.

His sculptures take time to build. Some take hours, and others take days or months.

Disintegration, 2008

He creates daily and works on his original designs as well as commissions.

The exhibition presented a broad and varied collection of his work. Some were simply enjoyable to look at, others were incredible in concept and execution.

Underneath, 2008

All were marvellously fun to consider. It brought out my inner child, even though I didn’t play with Lego when I was young.

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After seeing the fantastic creations by Nathan Sawaya, I see the clear connection between art and Lego.

An Artist’s View, 2006

Sawaya understands the scepticism of people.

He said, “Where does my art fall in the art world? I leave that to art critics and to art students. I just have fun. It’s art made out of a toy.”

Ascension, 2010

For myself, I no longer wish for something necessarily useful from my husband’s horde of Lego pieces.

Something artful made with a few of those Lego bricks would do just as nicely!

Text and photos Cammy Yiu

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