Five amazing Lego builds at ‘The Art of the Brick’ exhibit’s return to the Franklin Institute

When it comes to Lego, there’s mortar these little bricks than meets eye. Sure, one yellow Lego brick is just a piece of plastic with tiny nubbins, but a hundred can be used to make a house and 11,014 can be used to build the torso of a man opening up his own chest cavity with his bare hands.

Artist Nathan Sawaya illustrates the creativity Lego can unleash within all of us as his “The Art of the Brick” exhibit returns to the Franklin Institute on Saturday.

The show, which first debuted at the museum in 2015, features more than 100 large-scale Lego creations, 30 of which are new to the Franklin.

Among the new builds are a collection of endangered animals and reimagined versions of famous artworks, like Frida Kahlo’s The Frame. Sawaya’s most-famous creations, like a 20-foot-long T-Rex and the aforementioned Yellow, of a man ripping open his chest, are also on display.

To mark the exhibit’s return to Philly and the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Franklin as an institution, Sawaya built a replica of the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial that’s in the museum’s rotunda (he made a replica of the Liberty Bell for the show’s 2015 run).

Sawaya declined to say how many bricks he used to build Ben, because visitors are encouraged to guess for the chance to win a one-year family membership to the museum, but the build took just under a month to complete.

A former attorney based in New York City, Sawaya walked away from a career in corporate law two decades ago to pursue what made him happy, creating Lego art.

“My mantra is art is not optional,” he said during a press preview for the exhibit on Wednesday. “I realized art makes you happier, creating art makes you healthier, creating art makes you smarter, so really creating art makes you a better person.”

He encouraged those who attend the exhibit to explore the Lego play space at the end and to check out the creations by Lego fans who won the Franklin’s brick build challenge.

“As an artist I want to inspire folks to explore their own creativity and this is a great venue for doing so,” Sawaya said.

Here are five not-to-miss builds at “The Art of the Brick”:

Decisions, Sawaya’s largest work to date, made out of 112,306 bricks, features more than a dozen human figures suspended in midair above a red sea of human hands reaching up for them.

Are the figures floating or falling? Are the hands there to catch their fall or pull them down?

The decision is up to the viewer.

If you thought Whistler’s mother was a formidable figure in the 1871 portrait painted by her son, James McNeill Whistler, wait to you see her made out of bricks.

From the folds in her black dress to the expression on her face that screams, “I don’t suffer fools lightly,” Sawaya’s interpretation of the American masterpiece is stacked — and that’s a fact.

Sawaya locks both bricks and lips together with his Lego version of Gustav Klimt’s painting The Kiss.

To see this famous two-dimensional embrace reimagined in three-dimensional form with Lego bricks is stunning and surprisingly sensual (in a very PG way). Sawaya’s ability to capture and maintain the flat, geometric patterns in the couple’s gold robes as they flow around them is especially impressive.

Much of Sawaya’s work explores the human form and the joys and struggles we face, but in The Endangered Species Connection, Sawaya turns his sights to the animal kingdom and those within it we’re in danger of losing.

From a family of African elephants to a humpback whale suspended in air, the creations illustrate that every species is a building block of our world. The animals are impressive in their scale and serve as a reminder that like Lego bricks, we’re all connected.

As part of the exhibit, the Franklin held a brick build challenge, the theme of which was S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics). The winning builds and the stories behind them are featured at the end of the exhibit.

Kristy Whilden, 41, of Elmer, loves building Lego with her 10-year-old son, Zack. He made a Captain America shield for the challenge, while Whilden made a large Lego stamp of her hero, Laurent Clerc, a Frenchman and deaf-rights activist who cofounded the first school for the deaf in North America.

“Laurent Clerc is the reason American Sign Language exists,” she said.

Whilden was a music teacher for 10 years, but when she learned was losing her hearing she went back to school and obtained degrees in deaf studies and American Sign Language. She’s now vice president of the Société Laurent Clerc, which is campaigning to get a U.S. stamp in Clerc’s honor, which inspired her Lego build.

Whilden won the challenge in the 18+ category and said her son, whose build was not a finalist, was very supportive.

“The Art of the Brick” opens Saturday and runs through Sept. 2. Daytime tickets, which include admission to the museum, are $39 for kids ages 3 to 11 and $43 for adults. Evening tickets are $20 for adults and children. For more information, visit fi.edu.