The Boiler House

Itinerant attraction ‘The Art of the Brick’ has been trotting around the globe since 2007, and at time of writing had virtually sold out every time slot for the entirety of the Easter holidays at its temporary London home. As I have technically been an adult this entire time I have never previously had cause to visit what is essentially a series of Lego sculptures made by a single man: Nathan Sawaya, whose image and inspirational quotes are slapped all over the place (which is unaffiliated with Lego beyond its bricks being Sawaya’s material of choice). It’s not really art. I took a photo of a Sawaya quote saying ‘fortunately, there are no rules in art!’ and sent it to Time Out’s art editor. He replied saying that he thought I should be ashamed of myself. However, clearly the audience is not actually an art audience. The audience is children. One clue is the room with a gigantic T-rex skeleton in it. Another is the play area at the end, with a big pit of Lego and a big pit of Duplo and a nifty scanner thing where kids can place pictures of objects they’ve coloured in, which then appear in a virtual art gallery on a big screen. If the works lack razzle dazzle, Sawaya’s various humanoid figures are nonetheless technically impressive.  And kids will dig the art. Or models, or constructs, or whatever you want to call it. If the works on the whole lack a little razzle dazzle, Sawaya’s various humanoid figures are nonetheless technically impressive. My nine-year-old loved reading th