12-Year-Old Kid’s ‘Minimalist’ Lego Sculpture Goes Viral

Photo by Diane Sander via Public Domain Photography/Flickr.

Whether it’s Damien Hirst suspending a dead shark in a vat of formaldehyde or Andress Serrano’s “Piss Christ” photograph, the art world is often challenged by artists to consider the primordial question: What is art? According to Pablo Picasso: “We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” And painter Georgia O’Keeffe believes art is about “filling a space in a beautiful way.”

Recently, a 12-year old kid by the name of “Riley” challenged how people express themselves through Lego building blocks with his submission to a Kids Creations contest. Riley’s submission was a single yellow brick entitled “worm.” Was it a statement on how the rudimentary form of Lego blocks inhibit true self-expression? Was Riley challenging how we project our own internal thoughts onto Lego creations? Or was the “worm” simply all Riley could come up with?

Here’s how Twitter reacted to Riley’s mind-blowing art.