Nathan Sawaya, known as the brick artist, is my favorite LEGO artist around.  He mixes brick with modern art sculpture.  His latest project is Hugman, where he leaves a LEGO man hugging random urban objects.  Kind of a viral marketing technique, kind of a Banksy method, but still entertaining and unique in it’s own way.  His sculptures are on a gallery tour, so if they’re in your area, check him out!

Check out more on google images.

I’ve taken a few pictures of the sti(c)kman.  I first saw him in Philly with Kallie.  Then down in DC, and I think I saw him somewhere in pittsburgh too.

I recently came across a similar work of graffiti art called the "Toynbee tiles".  I vaguely remember seeing something on the street at the corner of Smithfield street and Forbes Avenue, but I never paid much attention to it.  Apparently the tiles are in a lot of major cities, and speculative roots are in philly.  It’s this weird license-plate sized box that makes reference to toynebee‘s idea about striving towards the future and always having goals that are almost impossible.  There’s also something in there about colonizing Jupiter like the movie 2001 space odyssey.

Here’s a link to the post gazette story – http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06151/694320-42.stm and to the wikipedia article – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toynbee_tiles