Shannon Ocean‘s latest work criticizes conformity with the COOL machine. Unique individuals enter and generic drones come out. Is this how personality is suppressed?
Tag Archives: Art
Mac Troopers
Flickr member 713 Avenue recently developed an interest in photo shooting Star Wars trooper minifigs with Apple products and other whimsical settings. The results are interesting and comical, they definitely define some personality underneath the helmets of these minifigs.
Maintaining Normality
Lego sculpturer and owner of MOCpages Sean Kenney has a tendency for artistic expression. His latest work is called Maintaining Normality.
If you have read his explanation but still do not understand the symbolism, according to the artist, “the pole represents the objects that we insert into our environments … be they cars, buildings, big macs, whatever … and the person represents the demeanors, chi, and social constructs we insert into our environments. In my sculpture, they’re both white because they both represent the ‘potentially dangerous input’ into our world.”
Edit (AB): You can also hear more from Sean on his blog.
Battle of Yin and Yang
Noddy depicts the clashing forces of Yin and Yang in a dynamic vignette. Check out the view from above, which cleverly forms the Yin Yang symbol (warning: may induce seizures).
There are two more similar vignettes created in the past. Check out Bruce’s Yin to my Yang and Moko’s White and Black.
Minifig with a Pearl Earring, by Udronotto
The Wall
As soon as I saw this, I fell in love with its straight lines, not to mention the myriad of colors.
What beauty! What surrealism!
That one brown brick just makes you think. Wow!
Update (April 2): April Fools!
Flush dreams
I came across the works of Brickshelf user Devastator today, who has a taste for the bizzarre and macabre ranging from torture chambers, minifig executions and hangings, the gratuitous use of tentacles, and sheer randomness like mecha Pikachu. You may be making some connections at this point, but it is unlikely this builder and I cross-referenced each other’s works because his gallery predates mine while I’ve not known about him until today. So my question to ponder is: how does one’s mind get wired like so?
Check out Devastator’s most recent work called the Delirious Diorama. The beautifully crafted and accurate Chinese character means “bathroom.”
Hmm, bathroom.
Adorable LEGO cupcakes make me hungry
The sort of LEGO-themed food you generally see is that nasty licensed stuff you can get in stores. And most of the LEGO cakes and other homemade food look like melted bricks. But Flickrite hello_naomi uses what my wife says is probably fondant to create gorgeous cupcakes I want to eat right now.
Make way for the bad guy.
Album covers are a popular subject for LEGO creations, but it’s not so often builders create movie posters, as ImpreSariO has done.
That’s Scarface above, with One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Rocky Balboa below:
My favorite, though, is Forrest Gump:
(Via Klocki.)
Your one-way ticket to midnight
Keith Goldman presents his latest giant diorama, which depicts a solitary sector of the neo-Japanese urban industrial graveyard. As you can see from that string of adjectives, there’s no definite word to describe the genre that Keith builds in, which always makes his works refreshing and inspiring. The entire scene has a strange ambience that vibrates in a low droning frequency through your inner guts. It’s very trippy.
For the lyrical smack, hear it on MOCpages.
Piece of Peace: UNESCO World Heritage Sites in LEGO Part 2
Almost exactly two years ago, we highlighted the Piece of Peace exhibit in Japan, featuring UNESCO World Heritage sites built from LEGO by Japanese Master Builder Kazuyoshi Naoe (photo by SkylineGTR).
Now, a second exhibit (complete with an official blog) has been opened at the Parco shopping complex in Shibuya (an area of Tokyo), and photos of the amazing models have been turning up everywhere since the exhibit first opened in Shibuya on February 1st (the exhibit is now in Nagoya, until March 24).
Check out some of the World Heritage sites featured in the exhibit.
St. Basil’s Cathedral (photo by SkylineGTR) and Horyu-ji Pagoda (photo by Hirotaka Hatayama):
Shirakawa Village (photo by Yuki Koga)
The Acropolis (photo by Koji Hachisu):
Mont St. Michelle (photo by Hirotaka Hatayama):
And what a difference two years makes! I had to dig all over the ‘net to find the handful of pictures I used in my post, but here are just a few of the places where this event has been covered so far:
- How Many Studs to LEGOLAND
- Pootling
- MicroBricks
- Koji Hachisu’s photostream
- Hirotaka Hatayama’s photostream
- Yuki Koga’s photostream
- eddie’s photostream
- BINGO
- レゴ系
- わたしらしく
- Norio Nakayama’s photostream
- SkylineGTR’s photostream
(Photo of Sagrada Familia by Hirotaka Hatayama.)
For more information on UNESCO World Heritage sites, you can peruse the complete list on UNESCO.org.
Finally, I leave you with the tag-line: “Pieces of piece — the more the better.” Indeed.
More Black and White Classics as LEGO’d by Mike Stimpson
We featured a pair of classic photographs recreated in LEGO by Mike Stimpson several months ago, and I was pleased to see another work of LEGO art from Mike come through my feeds earlier today.
Here’s “V.J. Day Times Square” by Alfred Eisenstaedt (compare to original):
Even more pleasing (though slightly frustrating that I’d missed them), was seeing that Mike had created even more LEGO versions of classic photos.
I found the juxtaposition of LEGO smiley faces and the subject matter deeply moving in Mike’s version of “Viet Cong Captain” by Eddie Adams (Warning: The original is appropriately graphic):
See more in Mike Stimpson’s Classics in LEGO photoset on Flickr.