Anybody who has sat and tried to painstakingly full a 1,000 piece jigsaw will doubtless look upon Ai Weiwei’s newest Lego work with awe. Manufactured from 650,000 Lego bricks in 22 colors, the staggering 15m-long work is a recreation of Claude Monet’s triptych Water Lilies (1914-26) from the gathering of the Museum of Trendy Artwork, New York. The biggest Lego work that the dissident Chinese language artist has ever made, Water Lilies #1 (2022) will go on present at London’s Design Museum when it opens Ai Weiwei: Making Sense subsequent month (7 April-30 July).
The unique Impressionist masterpiece—depicting one of many lily ponds at Monet’s residence in Giverny, close to Paris—has change into an internationally well-known picture of nature and lightweight. For his model, Ai has used Lego bricks to “strip away Monet’s brushstrokes in favour of a depersonalised language of commercial components and hues,” in response to a press assertion. “These pixel-like blocks counsel up to date digital applied sciences that are central to fashionable life, and in reference to how artwork is commonly disseminated within the up to date world.”
A element from Ai Weiwei’s Water Lilies #1 (2022) Photograph: © Ela Bialkowska/OKNO studio. © Picture courtesy of the artist and Galleria Continua
However what’s that hidden door on the precise facet of the Lego picture? The darkish portal depicts the underground dugout in Xinjiang province, China, the place Ai and his father, Ai Qing, lived in compelled exile within the Nineteen Sixties. “Their hellish desert residence punctures the watery paradise,” a press release says. Who knew Lego may have so many dimensions? Who knew a lily pond might be so deep?
