April 26, 2017: The artist Ai Weiwei attracted international headlines in 2015 when he went head-to-head with the Danish plastic brick maker Lego over that company’s refusal to sell him bricks in bulk for an art installation: because he had used the bricks to make portraits of political prisoners around the world, Lego felt the need to declare that it “cannot approve the use of Legos for political works” and it cut Ai off. Art lovers around the world stepped up and collected Legos for Ai and made enough noise that Lego relented and allowed him to purchase the bricks from Lego, as long as any work he produces includes a statement that Lego is not endorsing any political stances.

Ai’s portraits of 176 political prisoners took more than one million Legos to produce. Both numbers, one million and 176, make a similar point: there are many political prisoners around the world and each person’s story is intricate and takes time to tell.

Some of Ai’s faces are famous: Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning. Most of them are not. Mohammed Hassan Jawad of Bahrain (seen in Ai’s portrait at top) is not, but you ought to know about him.
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