Arthur Gugick, 1960-2019

Hi all, I know this blog has been dormant for a long time, but I just saw a notice on Facebook that Arthur Gugick died in a car crash a few days ago. Arthur was a father and math teacher and, the reason I'm noting him here, an AFOL. You may remember him primarily for microscale recreations of world architectural landmarks, also amazing mosaics, along with other MOCs that you can see in his Flickr stream. I've featured his work here on multiple occasions as he has made several mosaics based on famous artworks. Indeed his last posted MOC was also a mosaic, an experiment in tiling patterns that to me comes out looking like a quilt, which as a form of folk art has a proper home here in this blog.

Nerdly with a Doughnut Earring

Last fall Tommy Williamson hosted a Nerdvember contest, challenging builders to recreate his blog's mascot Nerdly (a red 2x2 LEGO brick wearing thick glasses). Kosbrick came up with Nerdly with a Doughnut Earring, a parody of the Vermeer portrait.

Woman with a Parasol

Monet painted his wife Camille and their son Jean out for a stroll in 1875. The original is found in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. This LEGO version by Katie Prill was on display at Bricks Cascade earlier this year.

Venus de Milo

The Venus de Milo is a Greek sculpture, presumably of Aphrodite, dating to between 100 and 130 BC. It was discovered on the island of Milos and now resides in the Louvre. As a very famous piece, she's been depicted in LEGO form many times, including these:

Dirk VH


Brian Kescenovitz


Constant Concepts


Nathan Sawaya

Louvre

21024 - The Louvre is an official set released in the Architecture line of microscale landmarks. The Louvre, of course, is one of the most famous art museums in the world. It was originally a palace of the royal family of France, but now houses such famous artworks as the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory.

Yoko Ono

Most of us think of Yoko Ono in terms of her connection to John Lennon, but he is an artist in her own right (I believe they met at one of her exhibitions, but I'm basing that on a TV biopic of their life so might be wrong). She had a show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York this summer, and was celebrated in LEGO form by Veronica Watson (previously blogged here) along with her piece Apple, a real apple which ripens and then decays over the course of the exhibit.

Welcome to Gaza

Earlier this year, Banksy went to Gaza, creating a series of works highlighting destruction and the lives of the Palestinians, including this kitten recreated in LEGO by TheBrickAvenger

Picasso does Geisha

Let's finish up our little Picasso retrospective with some humor with Graham Minchin's Picasso does Geisha.

Girl with Red Beret

Girl with Red Beret is another Picasso work, from around 1911. Bill Vollbrecht made this LEGO version when he worked at Legoland California.

Don Quixote

Arthur Gugick made two versions of the 1955 Picasso sketch Don Quixote using different LEGO mosaic techniques.

Woman with a Book

Woman with a Book by Pablo Picasso is a portrait of his mistress, Marie-Therèse Walter. Dave Ware made this LEGO version.

Guernica

On April 26, 1937, the German air force carried out a bomb raid on the civilian population of the village of Basque town of Guernica at the behest of the nationalist government of Spain. In response to this Pablo Picasso painted his anti-war painting Guernica, which has become a symbol of the horrors of war around the world and especially of civilian casualties. The original painting, which is over three meters tall and 7 meters wide, can be seen in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain. However, you can see a LEGO rendition by Veronica Watson at the Legoland Discovery Center at the Ridge Hill megamall in Westchester, New York. In describing her LEGO work, she said:

“I was familiar with ‘Guernica’ before recreating it in Lego,” Watson tells Hyperallergic. “It is probably my favorite of Picasso’s Cubist works. This style used to represent the chaotic subject matter of the Spanish Civil War makes it an incredibly powerful piece in 1937 and in 2014. The most difficult aspect of making the Lego version was deciding how much detail to include. There is a lot going on in the painting. Rather than explicitly recreating every detail, I worked at suggesting the right forms so that the painting would be instantly recognizable.”

Never has so much

Alex Eylar built a Banksy quote that echoes a famous line by Churchill. The full Banksy quote is: "The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little."
I prefer the shadows, but he also has the direct photo.

Pulp Fiction Bananas

Pulp Fiction Bananas by Banksy appeared on a wall in London in 2007, but was removed because it was "too violent".

Nick Sweetman

Jeff Friesen

Girl with a Red Balloon

Several months ago I wrote about LEGO creations based on Flower Thrower by street artist Banksy. Another popular work by Banksy is Girl with a Balloon that first appeared in 2002 in the South Bank neighborhood of London. Here are a number of LEGO renditions of this work, or that reference this work:

Jeff Friesen

Team Boob (or maybe they were taking pictures of anonymous street art

Nick Sweetman

Ben Waters

Xanderburgess

Silvia

Barcode

Kosmas Santosa built Barcode in protest of his nation of Indonesia's rank as the the top nation in the world in deforestation.

More Bob Ross

The other day I noted a LEGO Bob Ross. He seems to be a very popular artist to turn into a fig (probably because of the afro hairpiece). Here are some variations by Rob Bender, Moritz, Mike M, Constant Concepts, Richard Pennock, Klyph R'ha Ben Sun, Infectious Zombie, Deb Moran, AFOL Man, and Joseph Meluso.

Concrete Games

Sharon Pazner is an Israeli artist from Tel Aviv. Check out her Flickr stream to see lots of pieces using interesting materials like concrete and cut paper. Here are some works from her Concrete Games exhibition earlier this year.




(Okay, that last one had no LEGO, but it was probably my favorite.)