What To See At The Art Of The Brick

Two kinds of people can expect to get a kick out of The Art of the Brick, the Discovery Times Square’s LEGO exhibit: the enlightened ones who come upon a lopsided urinal and see a work of art—and the rest of us who see a toilet may out of tiny toy pieces.

On display are famous paintings, sculptures, religious statues, architectural monuments, and historical buildings—all fashioned from millions of LEGOs by Nathan Sawaya, a local artist and former lawyer who empowers kids to build what’s not on the box. The talented Sawaya says that art has no rules and sees inspiration in an apple (which he reproduced to-scale as well as a genetically modified version).

Tossed in with the admission fee—an art lesson of sorts. Alongside each LEGO’d interpretation is an explanation of how Sawaya envisioned his creation, when it was ginned up the first time, how the LEGO version compares to the original, and how many little plastic bricks were used in the project. The Mona Lisa is made up of 4,573 LEGOs while Michelangelo’s David is comprised of 16,349 pieces. A full-scale Easter Island Moai is a whopping 75,450 pieces and a scaled-down Parthenon clocks in at 30,210. And a full-sized replica of “The Toilet,” was accompanied by the story of famed artist Marcel DuChamp’s challenging the art world to view an upturned urinal as art in 1917. (The only thing missing is details regarding how long each project took to build. For the record, though, life-size individuals tend to take about two to three weeks, depending on complexity.) Several times, Sawaya delves into scale, pixels, color, shape, angle, lighting, and creativity—always in new and interesting ways.

Also featured were many of Sawaya’s whimsical creations (and, really, how could a grown man who works with LEGOs not indulge in mirth?): a blue head with a musical staff growing from its cranium, a jungle gym that metamorphoses into an adult, and the iconic yellow man opening his chest as his LEGO innards spill out. And then there’s the 80,000-brick dinosaur that you can’t help but wonder–how did he get it in here?

Though my family only spent about an hour at the exhibit, it was enough to re-engage my 10-year-old son’s love of LEGOs. Soon after getting home from the Discovery Center, Andy was swishing around in his LEGO box, searching for just the right pieces for his next project. We’d missed that.

What we hadn’t missed was the accompanying screech aimed at his younger brother: “GIVE it to me! I need that piece, CJ!” And the ensuing tussle.

Discovery Times Square is on 44th Street, between Seventh and EighthAavenues. The Art of the Brick costs $22.50 for adults, $19.50 for seniors and $17.50 for children aged 4-12. (discoveryts.com and 866.987.9692) The exhibit runs until 5 January 2014.