Dissident artist Ai Weiwei recreated a Monet masterpiece entirely in Lego

Artist and activist Ai Weiwei is examining design, history, and what humans choose to value in his exhibition “Making Sense” at London’s Design Museum(Opens in a new tab). 

The exhibition is a compilation of provocative and eclectic pieces both created and collected by the Chinese contemporary artist, including a particularly significant work: a re-creation of Claude Monet’s impressionist painting, Water Lilies #1(Opens in a new tab). Ai’s rendition is constructed of 650,000 Lego blocks spanning 22 colours. The artist notably added a personal detail not present in the original: a black portal, symbolising the entrance to an underground dugout in Xinjiang, China, where Ai and his father, the poet Ai Qing, were forced into exile during the 1960s until 1976.

This is Ai’s largest work in Lego, a medium the artist has previously worked with(Opens in a new tab), once leading to the company controversially refusing(Opens in a new tab) to approve the use of Lego for his politically-charged work showing at the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia. 

Like much of Ai’s existing body of work, the exhibition is underpinned with political messaging, related not only to his home country China but humanity at large. Widely known as a dissident artist, Ai has long questioned the contemporary world and mused upon the links between history and modernity, freedom and fascism. His acclaimed Study of Perspective(Opens in a new tab) pieces, a blend of photography and graphic design, are telling examples: these photographs feature Ai giving the middle finger to prominent sites of power and tourism globally, like Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the White House, and Trump Tower. With these, Ai “rejects the expectation that these institutions should be respected or revered,” the museum’s chief curator Justin McGuirk told reporters.

Other artworks presented at the Design Museum include ordinary objects such as takeout boxes, glass helmet, and toilet-paper rolls, rendered precious with valuable materials such as glass, jade, and porcelain. Playful in execution, the pieces encompass greater themes of construction, destruction, and what society chooses to deem worthy. 

Ai Weiwei: Making Sense(Opens in a new tab) is showing at the Design Museum in London from April 7 to July 30.