By: Jason Shen
Ai Weiwei, the son of a famous Chinese poet, has recreated the well-known Claude Monet oil painting of water lilies.
The Chinese government disagreed with WeiWei’s father and sent him to live in northwest China as a punishment. As a result, Mr. Weiwei grew up in difficult conditions. He later faced other problems with the Chinese government and now lives outside of China.
WeiWei has already created many different types of art including photos and videos. In much of his work, he has brought attention to situations where people are being treated poorly.
Being a creative artist Ai makes art out of many unusual and unique materials. In one of his works, he used iron from the aftermath of an earthquake. In another, he used over 100 million sunflower seeds that were painted. One even uses 1,000 bicycles! Now, Ai has recreated one of the world’s most famous paintings using legos.
Claude Monet was a famous French painter who painted hundreds of pictures of the water lilies in his garden. One of the most famous is called Water Lilies 1914-26 which he worked on from 1914 to 1926. Water Lilies is a gigantic painting made of three separate panels. Together, the panels are nearly 42 feet long.
Ai’s version is made up of 22 different colors of Legos. It contains 650 thousand Legos and is around 49 feet long. This replica is on display at the Design Museum in London, from April 7 to July 30 and takes up an entire wall in the museum.