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One masterpiece, 10 days, and 98,000 Legos

The Local Germany
The Local Germany - [email protected]
One masterpiece, 10 days, and 98,000 Legos
Photo: YouTube/Joseph Kuhr"

Duisburg student Mehdi Ghiassi builds phenomenal works of art at a frantic pace in his shuttered home. That's the only way he is assured a supplier's refund on the thousands of Lego bricks he uses.

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Apart from the intense time pressure, a saving grace is that unlike his inspiration Michelangelo, Ghiassi, 23, doesn't have to lie on his back on scaffolding to paint frescos on distant ceilings.

Apart from that, it's a gruelling, self-imposed labour of love to finish in time to dismantle it and claim his refund from the internet supplier. Otherwise the cost of the project is simply prohibitive, he says.

Primarily a comic book illustrator, Ghiassi branched into Lego art to "do something that has not yet been done", he told The Local.

His version of Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam' was built from 98,304 bricks in ten days, allowing him three days to dismantle the plastic masterpiece, repack and return the bricks within the prescribed two-week period.

Measuring two by three metres, this first or two large-scale works so far was created in conditions of complete isolation. First he rolled down the shutters of his student house lodgings, switched on his spotlights and worked feverishly until the piece was finished.

To make the deadline he had to lay one piece every three seconds for 16 hours a day over ten days. He grabbed food and showers when he could and generally slept no more than four hours. "You lose track of yourself unbelievably quickly," he says.

Unsurprisingly, he suffers cramps in his fingers, and they quickly get sore from handling the sharp edges of the blocks.

Ghiassi makes no comparisons of course, but it's still worth noting that it took Michelangelo over four years to paint the original in the Sistine Chapel.

A keen artist in his childhood and later a student of art and comic book art, Ghiassi switched to machine building to have more secure employment when he graduates in three years. 

But his heart still lies in his comic book art. In revealing his crafty building material ruse, he hopes his Lego 'detour' will raise his artist's profile enough to find work.

Nor was Adam a one-off. Once he had dismantled the Michaelangelo in January, he ordered the next batch of bricks and immediately set about his second work. In the same time period he successfully completed a replica of the oil painting 'Napoleon Crossing the Alps' by French artist Jacques-Louis David.

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