Ai Weiwei’s Largest LEGO Artwork Takes Residence at the Design Museum

From his The Bird’s Nest to Sunflower Seeds and many more, Ai Weiwei has solidified himself as one of the most renowned visual artists in contemporary culture. Now his catalog is growing even larger with the debut of his largest LEGO artwork at London’s the Design Museum.

Titled Water Lilies #1, the eye-catching piece is modeled after Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (1914 — 26), which currently resides at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. What makes Weiwei’s piece especially unique is its usage of 650,000 LEGO bricks in 22 different hues – spanning 15 meters in length. The new piece by Weiwei is a part of his first design-focused exhibition, which is set to open next month and also marks the artist’s largest UK show in eight years.

“Our world is complex and collapsing towards an unpredictable future. It’s crucial for individuals to find a personalized language to express their experience of these challenging conditions. Personalized expression arises from identifying with history and memories while creating a new language and narrative. Without a personal narrative, artistic narration loses its quality,” said Weiwei. “In Water Lilies #1, I integrate Monet’s Impressionist painting, reminiscent of Zenism in the East, and concrete experiences of my father and me into a digitized and pixelated language. Toy bricks as the material, with their qualities of solidity and potential for deconstruction, reflect the attributes of language in our rapidly developing era where human consciousness is constantly dividing.”

The Ai Weiwei: Making Sense exhibition opens on April 7 and runs through July 30.

Take a look at Water Lilies #1 in the gallery above.

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