The Scroller

Clearly thinking of nothing at all, this parody of Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture "The Thinker" is endlessly scrolling on his phone.

Collection

Imprinted Identities

CREATED

2024

Dimensions

35x46x53"

materials

LEGO bricks, powder coated steel

Themes

Social commentary

"The Scroller" - Sean Kenney's parody of "The Thinker". A sculpture of a man scrolling on his cell phone

LEGO sculpture of a man on his cell phone

LEGO Art. This man, posed like "the thinker" endlessly scrolls on his LEGO mobile phone.

A close-up of "The Scroller" by Sean Kenney. (Parody of "The Thinker")

Process

I wanted to highlight how Rodin’s beautiful and timeless capture of deep introspection contrasts with today’s modern obsession with (and, perhaps, preference to) the shallow and thoughtless.

To get the sense of parody right, it was important to me to make the figure’s pose identical to the original “Thinker” sculpture. I changed only the hand and the angle of the head; everything else is true-to-the original, to be as satirical as possible.

Close-up of a LEGO artist's hands at work building a LEGO sculpture in his studio.

The larger-than-life-size sculpture took about 2 months to design and create, and is built entirely with everyday off-the-shelf LEGO pieces. I believe in working within the LEGO system, so each piece is connected to one another the way that LEGO pieces are meant to be used. No custom shapes or cheats were used to build the sculpture. Nearly 30,000 white LEGO pieces were used.

Every piece is glued into place as it’s set down, and the entire sculpture is built around a custom-welded steel frame to help safeguard it against damage during transport and while on public display. The sculpture will premiere in my new traveling exhibition Brick Masters Studio, in Ontario, Canada in February 2025 and then travel with it for several years.