Denver Zoo and Denver Museum of Nature & Science Go La La for LEGOs

In case you're wondering what your penny-on-the-$10 Scientific and Cultural Facilities District sales tax is going to fund in 2020, one answer is LEGOS – and a lot of them.

Both the Denver Zoo and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, two of the biggest recipients of SCFD funding, are hosting LEGOs exhibits.

As part of general admission, the Denver Zoo will be displaying fifteen sculptures of animals, all built from LEGOs by artist Sean Kenny. The exhibit, dubbed Nature Connects, Art with LEGO Bricks, will run July 17 through October 31. Kenny and his assistants built the sculptures out of nearly a million LEGOs.

Each of the sculptures represents a rare or endangered species, including a snow leopard, a monarch butterfly, a whooping crane, a coral reef, a jeweled chameleon, a black rhino, an African lion, and a polar bear with her three cubs.

The polar bear might be a particularly welcome sight for many Denver residents. Some are still missing Cranbeary and Lee, two polar-bear sweethearts who were split up and sent away after failing to conceive at Mile High. And others are mourning the disappearance of Popsicle the Polar Bear, the longstanding SCFD mascot that was replaced in late 2019 by a generic purple, orange and yellow bear.

Starting June 19 and running through January 24, 2021, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science will be hosting another LEGO exhibit, the ticketed, blockbuster The Art of the Brick.

The exhibition showcases Nathan Sawaya's LEGO recreations of famous art works, from Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" to the Venus de Milo, as well as a Tyrannosaurus-rex skeleton made of 80,000 bricks and a life-sized sculpture of a yellow man.

The museum will also be hosting a LEGO brick-building contest for youth.

For tickets — which cost $9 for adults, $6 for youth and $8 for seniors — and more information on the exhibit, go to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science website.