Appropriately for the location, just off Brick Lane can be found an exhibition of bricks — LEGO bricks in fact, over a million of them. It’s a collection thats been put together by the USA based artist Nathan Sawaya, and is now a travelling show, Art of the Brick.
Although Sawaya is called an artist, much of the work on display are brick-form copies of other things. So while hugely impressive technically, this isn’t the sort of exhibition to visit to see newly created art, but to reimagine art we’re familiar with in a new setting.
At times, he has sought inspiration from famous paintings and pulled out one or two elements to show off his Lego-making skills, but the skills are best displayed in the huge-scale model of a T-Rex dinoasaur, which looks convincingly real.
One of the more enjoyablely arty rooms, though, is full of skulls—rows upon rows of skulls in a mirrored room with pulsating lights. It’s very photo-friendly and timed a bit like The Matrix.
One of the larger rooms has a short video about the artist playing in one corner, which is unfortunately short enough that you’ll have heard about his life as a corporate lawyer at least three times before you leave the room.
The exhibition though is very technically impressive, especially if your childhood skills with LEGO were rather basic, so seeing these large creations is always eye-popping. The one thing you won’t be able to do though is nick a brick off the sculptures as sensibly they’re glued into place.
The exhibition, Art of the Brick is at The Boiler House, on the corner of Brick Lane and Buxton Street, until 12th May 2024.
You’re advised to buy tickets in advance from here.
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