You might not expect to see hummingbirds at this time of year, but if you stroll through McKee Botanical Garden’s “Nature Connects” exhibition, be prepared for a sighting that will last you a life time: a ruby-throated specimen with a wingspan of five feet. The bird, shown sipping from an orange trumpet vine blossom, is made entirely of plastic LEGO bricks – 31,565 of them, to be exact. It and the 13 other LEGO sculpture installations now on display at McKee are the work of artist Sean Kenney, who has built a successful artistic career out of the toy bricks.
“Just as one LEGO brick connects to another, these sculptures represent the important connection nature has to all living things,” runs the promotion for the show, which has appeared at public gardens throughout the U.S.
That does not quite explain the life-size replica of a gas push lawnmower (13,704 LEGO pieces) in the exhibition, but it does ring true for the other sculptures which include a bison, a swallowtail butterfly, an eight-foot-tall rose, and a hoe-wielding gardener.
McKee Executive Director Christine Hobart learned of the availability of the exhibition 18 months ago during a conversation with her colleague at the Naples Botanical Garden, the executive director there, Brian Holley. The two were discussing “how to be creative and increase attendance” at their respective institutions. The Naples garden presented the traveling exhibition early last year, and Hobart visited it.
“It was exactly what I had hoped and expected to see,” she said of that exhibition, which successfully integrated the colorful sculptures into the garden’s existing design.
The hummingbird sculpture is one of Hobart’s favorites; at McKee it will take pride of place in the grassy greeting area, just inside the garden’s entrance. For Hobart, the most humorous sculpture in the exhibition is a huge bee (16,383 pieces). She anticipates the delight of children who will discover the insect suspended, as though in bustling flight, high over one of the garden’s streams.
If the elevated attendance figures at the gardens that have hosted this traveling exhibition are any indication, “Nature Connects” at McKee will be a child-magnet. Unlike the art history-related sculptures by Seward Johnson that graced the garden last year, no special knowledge of art is required.
LEGO bricks have been a playtime favorite since 1958, when LEGO patented the current version of its interlocking plastic bricks. That means that the three generations of Americans who have familiarity with the toy have no problem appreciating Sean Kenney’s sculptures. The “wow” factor alone is enough to keep the curious coming: an estimated half million individual LEGO pieces were used to create the sculptures on display.
And while the LEGO sculptures are eminently accessible to children as well as the young-at-heart, the stuff of which they are made is much more fragile than the bronzes in McKee’s previous exhibition.
All of the LEGO sculptures that Kenney creates for public display have been carefully glued together; to make them stable for outdoor display, the largest ones are even have steel rods in their interiors. Nevertheless, signs and discreet barriers in the “Nature Connects” exhibition will remind enthusiastic visitors not to touch or climb on the sculptures.
Sculptor Kenney understands the irresistible appeal of the versatile toy; he describes himself as a “lifetime fan” of LEGO. Now 38 years old, he began his creative career only ten years ago, when he walked away from the security of designing website interfaces for a big company in New York.
Although the pixelated look of his LEGO creations suggests that he uses his computer know-how to design his sculptures, that is not the case. Kenney has written that his artworks are “more than just accurate shapes; they have to capture the essence of the original; they have to have a spark, and there’s no computer in the world that can glean the glint of a child’s eye or can imbue humor or anecdote into a piece.”
For that reason, Kenney uses photos and drawings of objects that he wants to recreate in LEGO bricks. For example, the hummingbird in the McKee exhibition took four weeks to research photos of the birds, and five weeks of building time to create. He creates at least one three-dimensional prototype on which he models the finished work, which is glued together as he goes. Kenney estimates that he has about 2 million bricks in his inventory; he employs an assistant, Jung Ah Kim, to design some of the artworks, and a small team of workers to help him assemble them.
In the first year of his professional LEGO career Kenney developed a relationship with the manufacturer of the toy, LEGO Group. He was the first of 12 artists worldwide to be designated a LEGO Certified Professional by the company. That means that Kenney has LEGO’s legal blessing to commercially market the artworks he creates from its products.
The other three LEGO Certified Professionals in the U.S. are Nathan Sawaya, Adam Reed Tucker and Beth Weis. Sawaya’s LEGO sculptures will be featured in a solo show this fall at the Vero Beach Museum of Art.
LEGO Certified Professionals are not LEGO employees, and Kenney’s website advises that while he is “their best customer,” he is not “sponsored, endorsed, paid, employed (or whatever!) by them in any way.”
In addition to leasing traveling exhibitions of his work, Kenney makes his living selling his art to companies, state and local governments, and private individuals. A good part of his sales are commissions. Marriott Hotels, for example, had Kenney create scale models of the hotels it operates in major North American cities; Google had Kenney build two LEGO models off the Google logo, one for its New York headquarters, and the other for its Copenhagen offices; and the City of Harrisburg, PA, commissioned an eight-and-a-half foot tall neoclassical figure holding a banner (55,450 LEGO bricks, all in yellow). The sculpture welcomes travelers to the city’s Visitor’s Center.
Kenney also sells his original compositions. Featured on his website are a 41-inch-high rubber ducky (23,234 pieces). Its asking price is $39,000, but for those on a budget, Kenney’s three-foot wide model of the Great Wall of China is available for $4,000. Wedding cake toppers (with your choice of hair colors for the bride and groom) start at $79; additional customization of the basic model costs more.
Kenney has also launched a line of LEGO home décor, including two dimensional abstract wall art, a Chinese-themed red entry table, and a line of electric table lamps, several of which will be available for purchase in the McKee Botanical Garden gift shop.
And for those who can’t get enough of his art, another “Nature Connects” show with all new sculptures from Kenney is scheduled for exhibit at McKee for 2017. Hobart says that the garden reserved both the current and new versions at the same time; a good thing, as the exhibitions are now booked solid through 2019.
Whether the show is fine art or fad, serious environmental statement or clever commercial ploy, is up for debate.
McKee Executive Director Hobart is pragmatic in her assessment of the exhibition’s value: “It’s part of our culture and part of what we need to do,” she says.
“Nature Connects is on display at McKee Botanical Garden through April 12. General admission to the garden is $12 for adults, $11 for seniors and $8 for children; children under 3 are admitted for free.
