Chinese artist Ai Weiwei reconstructed Claude Monet's Water Lilies using 650,000 Lego bricks in 22 different colors. This work called Water Lilies #1 (Water Lilies in French) is nearly 15 meters wide, details CNN. It is the largest Lego creation ever made by the artist, said the Design Museum in London, where it will be exhibited from April 7 to July 30.


ai weiwei (@aiww) recreates Claude Monet's water lilies using 650,000 LEGO bricks at @DesignMuseum https://t.co/WbqsWHhVoE pic.twitter.com/4XkRqYjVya

— designboom (@designboom) March 22, 2023

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This Lego version depicts the famous white water lilies of Monet's house in Giverny. On the right is a darker part that alludes to Ai Weiwei's childhood in the Xinjiang region of China. According to the museum, this part would represent the door of the underground shelter where the 65-year-old artist lived in exile with his father in the 1960s. "This is a monumental, complex and powerful work, and we are proud to be the first museum to present it," said the curator of the British institution.

"A monumental work"

"In Water Lilies #1, I integrate Monet's impressionist painting, reminiscent of Zen in the East, and the concrete experiences of my father and myself into a digitized and pixelated language," the artist said in a statement. Why use Lego? For these "toy bricks, with their solidity qualities and deconstructive potential, reflect the attributes of language in our era of rapid development where human consciousness is constantly dividing," Weiwei replied.



This artist is known for using various materials in his works, such as wood, porcelain, pottery or found objects. It was in the late 2000s that Ai Weiwei integrated small colored bricks into his repertoire. He distinguished himself in 2014 after having made hundreds of portraits of political prisoners and exiled people in Lego.

  • Culture
  • Art
  • Lego
  • China
  • Claude monet
  • United Kingdom