I kind of think your analogy is backwards. It’s as if a pencil-maker who sells pencils to pencil distributors suggested you should simply buy their pencils normally, from the distributors just like everyone else, rather than accept your invitation to enter into a closer relationship than regular pencil buyers, a relationship which could be mistaken for support or sponsorship of actions that could anger the pencil-maker’s landlord or customers or whatever. Be a regular valued customer. No big deal.
I think this is so trite as to be false. There are contexts in which it’s a useful thought to entertain, but when it comes to whether things threaten a brand, there are things that can raise concerns and also things are so trivial and so far below any threshold of concern that pretending they’re political in any meaningful way is neither useful nor accurate.
I really question that Lego is actually really doing this. People have been saying that Lego is doing this, and they believe that Lego is doing this, but I haven’t seen anywhere that Lego is actually doing what they claim - it is merely being assumed. Your priest link for example had no trace of double standards. Artists using Lego to make political statements in no way implies that Lego is selectively allowing its trademarks to be used politically. (It generally implies little more than that some artist obtained some Lego and used it to make a statement.) In fact I’m not even sure if we’ve seen examples of Lego making a logo policy exception for anyone, political or otherwise.
(And while they’re not big on granting special permission to use the logo in ways outside their policy, they’re also famously not big on sending in the jackboots if someone does transgress (providing it’s a relatively non-threatening violation), a leniency that is probably confusing people (into thinking some artists were granted special permission for things when they didn’t actually have permission to do that), and feeding into these perceptions that Lego has selective double standards about giving permission to use the logo outside policy).
I think he is trolling both Lego and China. He seemed rather delighted at being rejected. He knew it would happen, and it nicely publicized a corporation bending its morals for Chinese money.
Lego even provided a lovely piece of PR blah blah to help out.
Exactly. Everyone defending Lego’s right to not sell things to people don’t seem to realize Lego is being criticized (for being dickish) and is not being accused of censorship. Two different things. Ai WeiWei is still free to do what he does.
I wouldn’t put it past Ai WeiWei, he’s sharp as a razor, as @willmore pointed out the first Lego factory in China is scheduled to become fully operational in 2017, so it’s great timing too.
?? Lego never indicated anything of the sort, they simply refused to sell their product on the basis that selling their product to the museum would associate them with Ai WeiWei & his proposed exhibit there. They didn’t suggest or recommend that the purchase be made elsewhere, they backed their refusal with a promise to enforce their trademark if it appeared associated with the exhibit in any way. Where you got “buy it from a distributor, friend” is all that is beyond me. Do you have access to the rest of the text?
As for your other textblocks, A. Make a non-political artistic statement. B. Lego not enforcing it’s trademark protections when associated with political statement is selective enforcement.
And regarding Ai Weiwei, I have yet to see an artistical expression from him that impresses me beyond being media’s favourite dissident from our favourite rogue country.
