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Seattle’s Pacific Science Center is the latest home to Nathan Sawaya’s full LEGO art exhibit.
Sam Machkovech
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Starry night.
Sam Machkovech
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The second Chinese horse.
Sam Machkovech
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Modern art: now even more modern looking.
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Nolde’s The Prophet.
Sam Machkovech
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The reflected light from this stained glass recreation cast a cool, colorful shadow below.
Sam Machkovech
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Ars, who never said “no” to Lego, couldn’t resist the Art of the Brick when it came close to Seattle (2016). This Mona Lisa version is easily twice the size of the real painting.
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Otherwise much smaller Legos would have been needed.
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The placement of the light turned out to be entirely deliberate, resulting in some cool shadow moments.
Sam Machkovech
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The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Sam Machkovech
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More detail.
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Sawaya largely adheres to the standard, primary LEGO colors, as opposed to specially painted colors. The results are striking.
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American Gothic.
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Another angle, this time with more pitchfork.
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A painting by Jan van Eyck recreated as a sculpture.
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What a dress detail.
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Setup in gray and black No. 1.
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Face close up.
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The Scream.
Sam Machkovech
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Screamer.
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Can’t get enough of LEGO studs.
Sam Machkovech
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The 2D-to-3D conversions were all pretty radical.
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Gustav Klimt’s Kiss.
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Zoom in on the “kiss”.
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Wanderer above the sea of fog.
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Now on sculptures based on real sculptures.
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Another angle.
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What a detail with only primary colors.
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Just like the real David, LEGO David’s butt got a lot of attention from photographers.
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Degas’ little dancer of 14 years.
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The Gayer-Anderson cat, found in Egypt.
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LEGO Thinker.
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More ancient sculptures.
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The exhibition’s deliberate shadow work really made an impact.
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Don’t worry, it’s not ivory, it’s just LEGO!
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Wonder if there are little LEGO pharaohs buried in here.
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Looking on pensively.
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Venus from LEGO.
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Another angle.
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PSC staffers told Ars that this giant MOAI statue was perhaps the heaviest thing to enter the museum. After all, none of the works are hollow.
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Solid (LEGO) brick.
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The Moai piece had the most visible tape on its stones, presumably to keep this insanely large thing intact.
SEATTLE—At Ars, we love a good piece of LEGO design, especially the prizes that can be found annually at regional fan parties like BrickCon. But while those shows impress with pop culture references and sprawling cities filled with vehicles, spacecraft, ships, and villagers, they typically don’t feature the kind of original work or high-quality references you’d expect to find in a museum.
Oregon-raised artist Nathan Sawaya, on the other hand, has been making art out of LEGOs for years — and has been showing it off in art galleries around the world since 2007. The artist’s latest show, which we’ve seen opening weekend in Seattle, continues to revolve around his original creations, which are featured in the lower gallery (and will be familiar to anyone who’s seen a Sawaya series over the years). show attended). But his more recent work revolves around LEGO reproductions of classic paintings and sculptures, which you’ll see in the top gallery of this article.
From Monet to Munch, and from Egyptian temples to politically charged Americana, Sawaya’s Art of the Brick collection traverses a tons of artistic movements of the LEGO frame. You can see all this and more at the Pacific Science Center through September 11.
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Unfortunately, this skeleton-like sculpture came closest to Sawaya pop culture.
Sam Machkovech
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Still looks rad though.
Sam Machkovech
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Sawaya uses this tear-out piece as the main image in most promotional materials, and it’s easy to see why.
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This second gallery consists entirely of Sawaya’s own creations, meaning they are not based on pre-existing artwork.
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Unless, of course, you count the shape and structure of a T-Rex’s skeleton as “pre-existing art.”
Sam Machkovech
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This sucker is huge.
Sam Machkovech
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Boy, what big LEGO teeth you have, T-Rex.
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A quick dip.
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Another angle.
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“Where are my hands?!”
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“…AND MY EYES?!?!?”
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Apple, apple.
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More apples.
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Lots of detail for a small, gray desk.
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The attendees really liked the giant pencil (which was a motif in many other Sawaya works).
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Even the frame is made of LEGO.
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Fortunately, the eyes of this face did NOT follow me as I walked around.
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Close-up of the cool light reflection effect of the LEGO parts.
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Many of Sawaya’s pieces spoke of a serious existential bent.
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The themes were mostly about being stuck…
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…or taken apart…
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…or in a box…
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…or held by unseen forces…
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(other angle of the hands)
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…or missing your whole freakin’ face.
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Sup, guys.
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“SKULLS.”
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Beautiful fish!
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More beautiful fish.
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Note that this woman is wearing a LEGO dress.
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As in, THIS dress.
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Another angle. This room was devoted to other photo shoots featuring LEGO approaches to real objects such as towels, clouds, umbrellas and more.
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An exhibition video features footage of Sawaya building pieces from the very beginning.
Sam Machkovech
Frame image by Sam Machkovech