Let's Go Lego in Singapore!

Legos can make powerful art!

    If people have have kids, they might opt to take them to a theme park called "LegoLand."  I've been to one myself and it was pretty impressive.  But I hadn't realized it was possible to express oneself deeply and emotionally using something as ordinary as those little plastic blocks.

   Then I heard about the artistic works of one Nathan Sawaya, a New York artist who renders huge sculptures using Legos, some deeply meaningful, some quirky and some quizzical.  We'd already planned our little excursion to Singapore, but when I saw that 52 of Sawaya's works would be on display at the Marina Bay Sands ArtSciene Museum while we were there. . . . . well, wild horses couldn't have stopped me from going!

Singapore's very cool ArtScience Museum

   The museum itself is really worth seeing, plopped there like a giant lotus flower opening to the sun.  But what's inside is pretty hot, too.   At least it was for this show, called "The Art of the Brick."  There were some very interesting, very provocative pieces, often showing human characters in various stages of angst.  For example, there was this one, which was called "Artist's Nightmare."  I guess if you create things with your hands by gluing thousands of little blocks together, losing your hands would, indeed, be a living nightmare.

"Artist's Nightmare" (losing one's hands)

  Sawaya does whimsical pieces, too, like giant pencils and a self-portrait in Legos juxtaposed with the actual artist himself.  

  

Nathan Sawaya in the flesh & in Legos

Life-size Pencil & Man!

One cool thing was the fact that Sawaya has entitled and explained his works and has posted the EXACT number of Legos he used in each one.  The giant Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton took tens of thousands of Legos and months of labor to create!

  














Another cool thing was all the very personal tidbits of information and commentary posted on the walls of the museum that explained Sawaya's mindset or method of creation.  For example, there were these:

The artist at work in his studio  (from TV display)

I think I'll stop writing now and let these artworks (for that is what they are!) speak for themselves.  But let me just say that if you ever have a chance to see these wonderful things, don't miss it!

Thinker rendered in plastic

Growing Old Together . . . .