Bricksy is Banksy meets LEGO, in this sublime, witty book

Banksy is one of the world’s most popular graffiti artists. His work often uses stencils to incorporate pop culture and politics into wryly humorous paintings that you’ll see around London. Of course, you know about LEGO, they’re the multi-colored bricks that you can make essentially anything out of.  Bricksy is the Unauthorized Underground Brick Street Art your inner brick builder, who is into outsider art always wanted to create.

I first heard about Banksy when he did the introduction to The Simpsons in 2010. Granted I was a little behind the cool curve, but life in suburbia is challenging to sustaining my previously hipster groove. His work is very distinctive and once you see it you know how much he influences other artists. It is graffiti, but it’s become socially acceptable graffiti, often times being sliced off of walls in order to be sold to collectors.

Bricksy is an interesting sell, because it requires you to find the wry, dry, humor in Banksy’s art, but done in a scaled down medium that millions of homes around the world have access to. The LEGO work in Bricksy is pretty, very imaginative and features 84 photographs. Most of the LEGO creations aren’t too complex, more like a dioramas than advanced creations you might be used to from master builders.

That’s where the art element of Bricksy comes in. So, is this an art book or a LEGO book? Jeff Friesen’s previous book, 50 States of LEGO is similar in its brickwork, but with a very different subject matter. His work in States highlights the subtle humor that exists in the characterizations of people from every state in the United States. Some of the humor is spot-on, makes you think, laugh and has nice brickwork.

Bricksy is in the same vein. For people that aren’t familiar with Banksy (like me) it might take them a couple times to find the humor and beauty in the book. If you’re familiar with Banksy then you’ll immediately grasp what Friesen was trying to accomplish with each creation.

It really helps that Friesen put a small picture of Banksy’s work that inspired each LEGO creation in the lower corner of every page. Some creations are almost exact duplicates, while others, simply because of the way they were painted, necessitate a larger canvas. Granted that’s a bit ironic when you consider that the smaller format LEGO needed a bigger range to tell the story.

Bricksy isn’t a book for everyone. If you’re an adult who likes outsider art, graffiti, Banksy or Robbo you will appreciate the detail, wit and sarcasm that the book has to offer. LEGO fans will enjoy the brickwork and how Friesen used the medium to recreate known works of street art into something smaller and brick laden.