He has used Lego bricks in the past to create portraits of dissident figures who were in exile or imprisoned.
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Expressing his surprise at Lego’s reaction, Ai said in Berlin, where he holds a guest university professorship: “I was flabbergasted as it was a perfectly respectable order”.
Ai Weiwei’s Beijing-based studio is organising an worldwide donation drive of Lego bricks via social media, after the artists was denied a bulk order of the popular building blocks.
Commenting on the strong involvement of his fans on social media, Ai Weiwei compared the Internet to “a modern church”, where the community can take part in finding solutions together, he said at the press conference in Berlin. In fact, the artist has been deluged with offers to donate Lego bricks to his project. In response to LEGO’s refusal and the overwhelming public response, Ai Weiwei has now chose to make a new work to defend freedom of speech and “political art”.
In fact, the success of the hashtag has translated into real life with Weiwei even announcing pick up points for donations – like this “container” where people can drop their lego donations in through the sunroof.
And his team plans to set-up Lego collection points in different cities to support the effort. When Ai’s studio was informed of the sale refusal, the protest artist took to his Instagram to tell his followers about LEGO’s “act of censorship and discrimination”.
One supporter posting on Twitter told the manufacturer: “Your execs need to go watch the @TheLEGOMovie and think about what they’ve done”. But Lego said no way.
Among the business deals which were signed during the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Britain last week was a new Legoland amusement park to be built in Shanghai.
Lego’s parent company Kirkbi owns a 30 percent stake in Merlin.
Lego’s head of marketing in Australia Troy Taylor said “we refrain, on a global level, from actively engaging in or endorsing the use of LEGO bricks in projects or contexts of a political agenda”.
That included making bulk sales if it is aware the product’s use will have political connotations.
Known for his “Bird’s Nest” Olympic Stadium, Ai, who has regularly criticized China’s record on human rights, had ordered the LEGO bricks for a new work that is due to be exhibited in Melbourne, Australia, later this year.
Ai Weiwei, a Chinese contemporary artist and outspoken dissident, spoke to CNN’s Ivan Watson on Wednesday, July 22, 2015, shortly after receiving his passport from the Chinese government.
The outspoken critic of China’s ruling Communist Party was detained for 81 days in 2011 as part of a nationwide crackdown on dissent. The document was only returned in July this year, enabling him to travel to Europe.
Ai claimed that Lego acted with its own political motivations.
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The idea appears to contradict the company’s Acceptable Project Content, which says projects related to “politics and political symbols, campaigns, or movements” will not be accepted because they “do not fit our brand values”. The company continues to sell sets depicting world political and historical monuments such as the White House and the Lincoln Memorial in the USA and the British Houses of Parliament.
