Itinerant attraction ‘The Art of the Brick’ has been trotting around the globe since 2007, and at time of writing had virtually sold out every time slot for the entirety of the Easter holidays at its temporary London home.
As I have technically been an adult this entire time I have never previously had cause to visit what is essentially a series of Lego sculptures made by a single man: Nathan Sawaya, whose image and inspirational quotes are slapped all over the place (which is unaffiliated with Lego beyond its bricks being Sawaya’s material of choice).
It’s not really art. I took a photo of a Sawaya quote saying ‘fortunately, there are no rules in art!’ and sent it to Time Out’s art editor. He replied saying that he thought I should be ashamed of myself. However, clearly the audience is not actually an art audience. The audience is children. One clue is the room with a gigantic T-rex skeleton in it. Another is the play area at the end, with a big pit of Lego and a big pit of Duplo and a nifty scanner thing where kids can place pictures of objects they’ve coloured in, which then appear in a virtual art gallery on a big screen.
If the works lack razzle dazzle, Sawaya’s various humanoid figures are nonetheless technically impressive.
And kids will dig the art. Or models, or constructs, or whatever you want to call it. If the works on the whole lack a little razzle dazzle, Sawaya’s various humanoid figures are nonetheless technically impressive. My nine-year-old loved reading the brick count next to each sculpture – some go over 80,000! – and it is of course important to bear in mind that the artist came up with all his designs himself, which is also cool and inspiring if you’re nine.
It’s not one for snooty art critics, and there is something quite Alan Partridge-esque about Sawaya’s insistence on inserting himself everywhere. But if you think your children are the sorts to enjoy gawping at colossal Lego builds for about an hour, you’re probably right. And you never know, they may learn something about art – if just a little.
Where is the LEGO exhibition in London?
The exhibition’s temporary London home is the Boiler House, part of the Truman Brewery complex situated, appropriately enough, on Brick Lane. The venue is a 7-minute walk from Shoreditch High Street overground station, or an 11-minute walk from Algate East underground station.
How long is the LEGO exhibition on for?
The exhibition is currently scheduled to run until Sunday 12 May. As a touring exhibition there is a chance it will come back to London at some point in the future. At present it has toured to over 100 cities across 24 countries, and is also running concurrently in Miami, Paris and Melbourne.