November 9, 2012 – January 27, 2013 (Now extended to February 3, 2013)

The LEGO® brick is a simple toy used by millions to ignite the potential of the imagination. This autumn, the Columbus Museum of Art and COSI are partnering to make Columbus all about LEGO® Bricks!

CMA’s Think Outside the Brick: The Creative Art of LEGO®, presented by the Center for Creativity at the Columbus Museum of Art, features exhibitions and programs that demonstrate the tremendous creative capacity of LEGO®. Creativity isn’t exclusive. It’s for everyone. Think Outside the Brick illustrates that all of us have innovative ideas worth pursuing. Think Outside the Brick is included with general CMA admission.

The CMA show features:
• In Pieces: New Work by Nathan Sawaya and Dean West
• AFOL
• Lego Columbus: Central Ohio LEGO Train Club
• Let’s Go Lego Community Competition Finalists

In Pieces: New work by Nathan Sawaya and Dean West
New York-based artist Nathan Sawaya creates awe-inspiring works out of LEGO® brand toy building bricks. His obsessively and painstakingly crafted works have gained him attention from art lovers and LEGO® fans around the world. For his new project In Pieces, Sawaya collaborated with Canada-based Australian photographer Dean West, who has won Advertising Photographer of the Year at the International Aperture Awards and whose work was included in Saatchi & Saatchi’s collection of the world’s top 100 emerging photographers. The two artists partnered to create tableaux of highly stylized scenes of contemporary life. Elements of each image are built of LEGO® bricks, and those sculptures are exhibited alongside the photographs. By tricking our eyes to perceive LEGO® sculptures as real elements of a photographed scene, the artists ask us questions about heavily manipulated representations of contemporary life. What is real and what is LEGO®-pixelated recreation?

(Supporting Sponsors for In Pieces: Peggy Mativi and Donald W. Dick.)

AFOL
The artists in this group show have nurtured their love LEGO® bricks into adulthood to become AFOLs, a commonly-used acronym within LEGO® communities for Adult Fans of LEGO®. These artists have taken their fascination with LEGO@ into their studios, where the toy inspired them to create original LEGO® sculptures, paintings recalling childhood, and multimedia dioramas exploring the toy’s creative potential. Whether it’s a spectacular sci-fi creature or tiny caricature of your favorite cartoon, something in this exhibition will inspire you to think of LEGO® bricks in an entirely new light.

LEGO@ Columbus: Central Ohio LEGO Train Club
This area of Think Outside the Brick will feature landmarks from throughout Columbus created by the Central Ohio LEGO Train Club.

Let’s Go LEGO® Competition Selections
Selections from winners of our our first-ever LEGO® competition for LEGO® builders ages 6-adult.

Related CMA Programs
Doodles
Family Builds
Saturday, November 3, 10, 17, 24, 1:00 – 3:00 pm
In this drop-in program, adults and children 6 and up experiment with fun materials and create art together. Families will work together on unique, open-ended projects inspired by LEGO@ bricks and artwork in the galleries.

1^st Saturdays
Saturday, December 1, 10:30 am – Noon
This drop-in program allows adults and children to have fun and explore art together. Each 1st Saturdays program celebrates an artist, current exhibition or theme from the CMA collection and includes an interactive gallery game, hands-on art project and a related arts performance such as music, storytelling, or theatre.  The art making project will be a large-scale group-building project.

Dispatchwork Columbus
Saturday, November 10, 2012 2:00 PM
Bring your friends and family to explore downtown Columbus in a whole new way. Artist Jan Vormann developed Dispatchwork as a way “to seal fissures in broken walls worldwide,” by using LEGO@ bricks to repair damaged buildings. In conjunction with Think Outside the Brick, we’ll install Dispatchworks around Columbus. We’ll travel by foot, so wear comfortable shoes and dress for the outdoors. Our supply of bricks is limited, so please BYOL [bring your own LEGOs]. Please call 614.221.6801 to let us know if you plan to participate. For details, visit www.dispatchwork.info.

LEGO® Castle Adventure at COSI
Check out the LEGO@ Castle Adventure exhibition at COSI. Builders of all ages are invited to explore, build and play in LEGO® Castle Adventure! In LEGO@ Castle Adventure, build brick castles, learn about real-world castles and their building secrets, and plan your ideal castle’s defenses. Admission is included with COSI general admission. As part of our special partnership with COSI, CMA Members receive $2 off admission to COSI September 29, 2012  – January 6, 2013 when you show your CMA Membership card.

Related Programs at COSI

LEGO® Bricks & Building Toys
Saturday, November 17, 2012 (10am-5pm) and Sunday, November 18, 2012 (Noon-6pm)
From LEGO bricks to Lincoln Logs and everything in-between, you can become your own master builder! Play with building toys of all shapes and sizes, plus meet LEGO® Mindstorms® robotics teams and see their competitive creations. On Sunday November 18, Columbus Museum of Art’s education team will be at COSI with Art Challenges.

LEGOC Castle Adventure is produced by The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis in cooperation with LEGO® Systems, Inc. LEGO® and the LEGO® logo are trademarks of the LEGO® Group. ©2012 The LEGO® Group. All rights reserved.

Supporting Sponsor: Big Lots.

Who would you like to see as a LEGO® block minifigure?  Download the template above to draw your own custom figure.