When Ai Weiwei denounced what he calls “an act of censorship and discrimination” against his studio earlier this week by Danish toymaker Lego, who refused to sell him a bulk order of Lego, the internet swiftly stepped in to support the controversial artist.
The privately owned company decided that Weiwei’s upcoming show honoring Australian dissident voices violated the terms of their corporate policy because, “The motive(s) cannot contain any political, religious, racist, obscene or defaming statements.” A sect of the artist’s 175k Instagram followers and 295k Twitter follwers offered up their own Lego instead, and now the artist is collecting them in a fleet of donated BMW 5S Series sedans in cities all over the world. In New York City, the Brooklyn Museum is Weiwei’s donation location; Melbourne’s is at the museum hosting the upcoming installation, the National Gallery of Victoria; Berlin’s is in front of the Martin-Gropius-Bau; and more pictures of BMWs are being posted every day.
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The most satisfying part of the process so far is watching the empty cars fill up with multicolored bricks. A childhood spent cleaning legos out of the car makes the idea of filling one up with them seem so wrong, but also so right.
If you want to help out, you can also mail donations the Brooklyn Museum at 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York 11238. Keep up with Ai Weiwei’s latest updates and donation points on Instagram.
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