Thursday, November 21, 2013
Malaysian street art
I definitely need to devote some space on this blog to street art. In this form, sometimes called guerrilla art, graffiti, posters, or other pieces are put up in public places, usually without permission, often with a political or social message. One of the most famous proponents is the British artist Banksy. I've seen both numerous examples of street art using LEGO imagery, and also LEGO renditions of street art. Recently a public piece by Ernest Zacharevic, who hails from Lithuania but is now a permanent resident of Malaysia, has made the news. The piece references the nearby Legoland theme park, and also the high crime rate in the state capital. In sadly predictable fashion, local authorities placed the blame on Zacharevic, saying the image of a minifig about to be mugged would instill fear in visitors to the city, rather than doing something about the actual crime rate. After sparking discussion for a few days, the piece was soon painted over by city authorities. Now copycat images are appearing on walls in various parts of Malaysia.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Girl with a Pearl Earring was painted by Johannes Vermeer around 1665. Little is known about the circumstance of the painting or the identity of the subject, who was fictionalized in a 1999 novel and 2003 movie by the same name. The painting normally can be seen in the Mauritshuis gallery in The Hague, the Netherlands, but it is currently on loan to the Frick Collection in New York City, so Americans will have a chance to see this more easily for the next two months. As a well-known painting, this has received several LEGO treatments, including one by Alan Boar that I previously noted. Some other LEGO inversions include these by Japanese children (in a group mosaic project), Arthur Gugick, Steef, Udronotto, Nathan Sawaya, one by kids (another group build) at the High Museum in Atlanta (when the actual painting was on loan there), and another version by Alan Boar. There has even been an official LEGO version as a painting being stolen from a museum in a City Police set.
_-_The_Girl_With_The_Pearl_Earring_(1665).jpg)
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
Les Joueurs de Cartes
W.I.P. Forever built this LEGO rendition of the Les Joueurs de Cartes (The Card Players). Paul Cézanne painted a series of five paintings on this theme in the 1890's.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Book review: Beautiful LEGO
Beautiful LEGO by Mike Doyle, 2013, No Starch Press
Please note that I'm posting this same review across my blogs, but I'm appending some blog-specific information at the end of each review.
A little while ago, Huw on Brickset noted the explosion of LEGO books in recent years. Some of those books are little more than catalogues of LEGO products (the 'here are all of the figures in the Harry Potter sets' type books), the really great thing about this trend is the great number of those books that are by, for, and about the AFOL community. The most recent addition to the growing bibliography is Mike Doyle's Beautiful LEGO, published by No Starch Press.
Beautiful LEGO is exactly what the title implies, a celebration of LEGO MOCs that are particularly gorgeous. The emphasis here is on the pictures - of the 266 pages in the book, only 17 of them have text. These text pages include a one page intro by Doyle about inspiring artistic MOCs and the creativity of the AFOL community, and a series of one to three page interviews with some of the builders. By my count 81 different builders contributed over 360 different MOCs. The subject matter is completely varied, from microscale buildings to full scale sculptures of everyday objects. The arrangement of MOCs is varied - in places Doyle gives several different builders' takes on the same subject matter, and in other places he places the spotlight on individuals, grouping a series of MOCs by the same person. The creations themselves run from humorous MOCs like some of Angus MacLane's Cube Dudes to some that are bright and fun like Thomas Poulsom's birds, to others that are dark and foreboding, like Doyle's own abandoned homes. As you can see from just those three examples, the builders include a lot of names that would be familiar to anyone who is active in the AFOL community - indeed most of the MOCs are ones I've seen featured on the various LEGO blogs. But just because I've seen them before, and by virtue of being someone reading my blogs you probably have as well, doesn't mean this isn't a wonderful book to own. It's a great collection of some of the best of the best, and perfect to peruse for inspiration, or just leave on your coffee table to amaze your non-LEGO friends. Indeed, I think this would be a great gift for a non-AFOL who just likes cool things (and it may even convert them into an AFOL).
Beautiful LEGO has one really nice thing that I think may be a unique innovation in this book. There is an index of contributors at the back, and for almost all of them Doyle provides a URL of where to find their work online (Flickr stream, personal site, a couple of MOCpages), and he includes the nickname they use on LEGO forums. This is great in a hobby where sometimes I only know people by their forum handles (indeed, since I've never been to a major AFOL convention, I still half believe that people look like their sig figures). I think this resource is a great tribute to the true heroes of the book, the community of awesome builders.
So are there any problems with this book? Sure. There's the unavoidable problem of selection. In the potentially infinite creativity of a worldwide community you'll always be able to ask "why not include this, or that?", a problem that Doyle recognizes in the preface. I'm a castle guy, and I would have loved to have seen more castles. I've been judging castle contests for a decade and could point to hundreds of castle MOCs that could easily sit alongside the other creations here. One critique that goes to No Starch rather than Doyle is that this really should be a hard cover book, in keeping with other coffee table books focused on beautiful pictures. A very minor critique is that two of the photos on the back cover are cut off at the top of the page. I think they were going for the effect of it looking like an endless collage of photos that keeps going, but if this were so they should have photos leading off all four sides of the page. My main critique, though, is with the presentation of the MOCs. Don't get me wrong, they are all high quality photos. Almost all of the photos are clear shots of the whole MOC in good lighting taken from the front, or with the MOC turned slightly to one side, with the camera looking slightly down. I guess in a book that was all about the creativity of the MOCs, I would have appreciated some more creativity of the photography - maybe some with different lighting effects, in silhouette, or with different filters on the camera, or some closeup details, or looking up at the moc from the base, that sort of thing.
On my blog ArtisticBricks I have several times asked the question "Is LEGO art?" or at least "Can LEGO be art?" Doyle answers that question with a resounding yes. One interesting thing I note is that while the minifig is ubiquitous in the world of AFOLs, there are almost no figs in this book. I wonder what that means? Is this just a reflection of Doyle's choices, or an indication that the fig is the distinction between playing and creating? That's something to think about, and I'd love to hear people's thoughts. Regardless, though, in this book Doyle has assembled a great portfolio of evidence that show that this thing we love is no mere toy, but a true medium for expression.
Blog-specific content: The whole thesis of the book is that LEGO can be beautiful art, and most of the works included could be be characterized as such. Several of the selections are things I've either already featured here or have bookmarked to feature soon, such as work and an interview from Nathan Sawaya, Doyle's Power of Freedom: Iraq, and Cole Blaq's Enter the Brick works.
Please note that I'm posting this same review across my blogs, but I'm appending some blog-specific information at the end of each review.
A little while ago, Huw on Brickset noted the explosion of LEGO books in recent years. Some of those books are little more than catalogues of LEGO products (the 'here are all of the figures in the Harry Potter sets' type books), the really great thing about this trend is the great number of those books that are by, for, and about the AFOL community. The most recent addition to the growing bibliography is Mike Doyle's Beautiful LEGO, published by No Starch Press.
Beautiful LEGO is exactly what the title implies, a celebration of LEGO MOCs that are particularly gorgeous. The emphasis here is on the pictures - of the 266 pages in the book, only 17 of them have text. These text pages include a one page intro by Doyle about inspiring artistic MOCs and the creativity of the AFOL community, and a series of one to three page interviews with some of the builders. By my count 81 different builders contributed over 360 different MOCs. The subject matter is completely varied, from microscale buildings to full scale sculptures of everyday objects. The arrangement of MOCs is varied - in places Doyle gives several different builders' takes on the same subject matter, and in other places he places the spotlight on individuals, grouping a series of MOCs by the same person. The creations themselves run from humorous MOCs like some of Angus MacLane's Cube Dudes to some that are bright and fun like Thomas Poulsom's birds, to others that are dark and foreboding, like Doyle's own abandoned homes. As you can see from just those three examples, the builders include a lot of names that would be familiar to anyone who is active in the AFOL community - indeed most of the MOCs are ones I've seen featured on the various LEGO blogs. But just because I've seen them before, and by virtue of being someone reading my blogs you probably have as well, doesn't mean this isn't a wonderful book to own. It's a great collection of some of the best of the best, and perfect to peruse for inspiration, or just leave on your coffee table to amaze your non-LEGO friends. Indeed, I think this would be a great gift for a non-AFOL who just likes cool things (and it may even convert them into an AFOL).
Beautiful LEGO has one really nice thing that I think may be a unique innovation in this book. There is an index of contributors at the back, and for almost all of them Doyle provides a URL of where to find their work online (Flickr stream, personal site, a couple of MOCpages), and he includes the nickname they use on LEGO forums. This is great in a hobby where sometimes I only know people by their forum handles (indeed, since I've never been to a major AFOL convention, I still half believe that people look like their sig figures). I think this resource is a great tribute to the true heroes of the book, the community of awesome builders.
So are there any problems with this book? Sure. There's the unavoidable problem of selection. In the potentially infinite creativity of a worldwide community you'll always be able to ask "why not include this, or that?", a problem that Doyle recognizes in the preface. I'm a castle guy, and I would have loved to have seen more castles. I've been judging castle contests for a decade and could point to hundreds of castle MOCs that could easily sit alongside the other creations here. One critique that goes to No Starch rather than Doyle is that this really should be a hard cover book, in keeping with other coffee table books focused on beautiful pictures. A very minor critique is that two of the photos on the back cover are cut off at the top of the page. I think they were going for the effect of it looking like an endless collage of photos that keeps going, but if this were so they should have photos leading off all four sides of the page. My main critique, though, is with the presentation of the MOCs. Don't get me wrong, they are all high quality photos. Almost all of the photos are clear shots of the whole MOC in good lighting taken from the front, or with the MOC turned slightly to one side, with the camera looking slightly down. I guess in a book that was all about the creativity of the MOCs, I would have appreciated some more creativity of the photography - maybe some with different lighting effects, in silhouette, or with different filters on the camera, or some closeup details, or looking up at the moc from the base, that sort of thing.
On my blog ArtisticBricks I have several times asked the question "Is LEGO art?" or at least "Can LEGO be art?" Doyle answers that question with a resounding yes. One interesting thing I note is that while the minifig is ubiquitous in the world of AFOLs, there are almost no figs in this book. I wonder what that means? Is this just a reflection of Doyle's choices, or an indication that the fig is the distinction between playing and creating? That's something to think about, and I'd love to hear people's thoughts. Regardless, though, in this book Doyle has assembled a great portfolio of evidence that show that this thing we love is no mere toy, but a true medium for expression.
Blog-specific content: The whole thesis of the book is that LEGO can be beautiful art, and most of the works included could be be characterized as such. Several of the selections are things I've either already featured here or have bookmarked to feature soon, such as work and an interview from Nathan Sawaya, Doyle's Power of Freedom: Iraq, and Cole Blaq's Enter the Brick works.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Happy birthday, Classic-Castle!
In addition to maintaining my little family of LEGO blogs, I'm also actively involved in Classic-Castle.com, the source for all your LEGO Castle needs. Classic-Castle just turned ten years old! In recognition of that, let's feature something appropriately themed. Here is
David, built in LEGO by TechnicNick. The original, of course, was built by Michelangelo between 1501 and 1504. It stands in the Accademia Gallery in Florence.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Sorry about the lack of blog posts for three weeks, life has been hectic. In the meantime I've bookmarked a lot of MOCs to put here. For instance, Alan Boar built Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Friday, August 16, 2013
Last Lichtenstein for now
Finishing up almost a week-long series on Lichtenstein, here is Girl in Mirror (I believe this is by Richard Morton:
A version of this is also on display at Legoland Windsor:
Sparks came up with this version of In the Car:
.JPG)
Finally, Tim Kirnan made his own LEGO Lichtenstein (at least I think this is his own homage based on Lichtenstein's style and not a rendition of a specific work):
A version of this is also on display at Legoland Windsor:
Sparks came up with this version of In the Car:
Finally, Tim Kirnan made his own LEGO Lichtenstein (at least I think this is his own homage based on Lichtenstein's style and not a rendition of a specific work):
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