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Artist Ai Weiwei recreates Monet's water lilies using 650,000 Lego parts
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei decided to demonstrate that contemporary art can be meticulous and large-scale at the same time. He has prepared a new work, "Water Lilies No. 1" Claude Monet, laid out in real size from Lego constructor parts.
The cubes total about 650,000 pieces. Work on it began in 2015, it was ready last year, and it will be shown to the public in a fresh exhibition at London's Design Museum this April.
As the artist explains, in this work he has tried to use modern digital technology not just to depict an impressionist painting, but also to tell a very personal story about him and his father.
Ai Weiwei is the son of the Chinese poet Ai Qing, who was persecuted by the authorities in the 1960s and forced to live with his family in exile in a remote province of China. It was there that Ai Weiwei spent his childhood.
In Water Lilies No. 1, there is an allusion to the times - among the flowers, on the right-hand edge of the painting, there is a "portal to the dark past" - the outline of the door to the dugout where the artist and his family lived as children. Ai Weiwei himself, openly criticises the Chinese authorities and fights for human rights around the world.
