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# Banksy gets Banksy-er with the addition of LEGO
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/banksy-gets-banksy-er-with-the-addition-of-lego/
- Published: 2015-11-18T12:00:23.000Z
- Updated: 2015-11-18T12:07:34.000Z
- Description: Maybe photographer Jeff Friesen is Banksy. I don’t have any real reason to believe that this is the case, but all Banksy-adjacent content should include some unfounded speculation about the mysterious artist’s true identity, so that’s my duty dispensed with. Here’s something I know for a fact about
- Author: Davidrudin
- Tags: News, Ai weiwei, banksy, books, Bricksy, Dismaland, Lego, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

Maybe photographer Jeff Friesen is Banksy. I don’t have any real reason to believe that this is the case, but all Banksy-adjacent content should include some unfounded speculation about the mysterious artist’s true identity, so that’s my duty dispensed with.

Here’s something I know for a fact about Friesen: He has put together a book entitled *[Bricksy: Unauthorized Underground Brick Street Art](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1634504798?ref=killscreen.com).* The $15 tome features 84 Lego scenes, each of which is based on one of Banksy’s works. Friesen has some priors in this regard. The Canadian photographer’s last book, *United States of LEGO®: A Brick Tour of America,* recast classic American tropes and scenes using the famous Danish children’s toys. And really the leap from making an Americana diorama to a Banksy street isn’t that large; both are works of satire though the extent to which they are self-aware is definitely up for debate.

Maybe *Bricksy* is the perfect distillation of Banksy’s oeuvre.

At least Friesen seems to be in on the joke. Although LEGO is a flexible medium, it does tend to subsume all source material to its aesthetic. Consequently, Friesen’s dioramas, which already took a fair amount of creative license in reimagining Banksy’s work, all look like a mildly subversive LEGO village. One might ask whether this makes Banksy’s work edgier or more milquetoast: I leave that question to you, dear reader.

![Bricksy: Unauthorized Underground Brick Street Art](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/previously/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/maid.jpg)

Maybe *Bricksy* is the perfect distillation of Banksy’s oeuvre. (Shit, did I just call it that?) [Whereas the maximalist Dismaland sought to get at the themes and convoluted commercialism of Banksy’s work through little more than sprawl](https://www.killscreen.com/look-out-disney-banksys-getting-theme-park-business/), Friesen’s tableaus suggest that the artist’s body of work is fundamentally compact. Little images of Banksy’s works dot the top corner of each page like a stamp. The size seems apt. If you reduced Banksy’s work any more, you’d just have a wad of cash.

(Bonus alternate theory: *Bricksy* is actually the work of Ai Weiwei, [because LEGO only supports some forms of artistic expression](https://www.killscreen.com/its-okay-lego-was-never-your-friend-anyway/). Suddenly the Friesen-as-Banksy theory seems borderline credible.)