The Art of The Brick

During the weekend just before Christmas, we went to check out The Art of the Brick at The ArtScience Museum. I would have brought the kids down earlier, but seeing as it was a Lego exhibition after all, I felt it was a bit mean to go without the husband. 

If you have not heard, The Art of the Brick is a collection of 52 large-scale Lego sculptures by Lego artist Nathan Sawaya. Lego as an art form. You know we had to go see it!

"Yellow", one of the signature pieces of the exhibition.

I didn't really know what to expect, but was quite blown away by the works. There was just an amazing amount of detail! And sooooo many bricks! Goodness. I'm sure the husband was deeply envious. 

"An Artist's View".
Would you believe that everything is constructed out of Lego? The furniture, the implements, and even the floor!

"Everlasting".

"Tyrannosaurus Rex".
As you can imagine, this one really caught Noey's eye. It was amazing! And huge!

I enjoyed the way the exhibition was presented, with the description of the pieces written in the artist's voice. That made each piece that much more real and personal, I felt. I was quite tickled on learning that the artist used to be an attorney and ribbed the husband about an alternative career. Maybe Lego really is a good way for lawyers to de-stress!

There were a number of interactive stations, which was great for the kids, who generally had less patience for standing around and admiring the artwork.

"Rain", with its own interactive station where you could try to re-create your own raindrop. Nomi gives it a good go.

Quite a fun photo booth point where you could take your own picture and have it converted into a Lego design!

Shadow play!

Nomi also tries her hand at designing her own Lego sculpture on gridded brick paper. The artist apparently used paper like this to design his sculptures before he built them.

Of course, right at the end, there had to be a Lego activity centre. Both my boys got straight down to work, naturally.

Oo, Lego! The husband had some fun creating several animals, like this croc. Noey made some vehicle or other, as usual!

There was also a foot reflexology point, which I found rather amusing. However, having suffered the pain of stepping on far too many stray pieces of Lego for my liking, I declined to try it out. 

Lego foot reflexology, anyone?

All in all, it was a rather entertaining afternoon. There are some additional activities for children (and possibly even adults) on Saturday afternoon, which include printing with Lego blocks and a stop motion workshop that sounded interesting. We arrived too late for those, but you might want to plan your visit a bit better to take advantage of these. Details can be found on the Museum Activity page.

It also bears mention that it was my first time back to the ArtScience Museum since my last visit a year ago and I was glad most of my bugbears from the previous visit had been addressed. The ticket prices were lowered, with special rates for local residents. Separate exhibitions were also priced separately, and multiple same-day entry was allowed. Unfortunately no free parking is offered on weekends, and after our time in the museum plus the time we spent having dinner, parking charges came up to a whopping $26. OUCH. I'm finding somewhere else to park in the weekend next time!

Ticket prices for The Art of the Brick are $13 for adult residents and $8 for children from 2-12. The exhibition is on at the ArtScience Museum till 14 April 2013.