The provocative Chinese artist’s bulk order was rejected by the Dutch toymaker ahead of a major exhibition at NGV.

Celebrated artist and activist Ai Weiwei is an outspoken opponent of the government of his native China, but now he has locked horns with an unlikely foe: Danish toy manufacturers LEGO. Ahead of his upcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, which opens on December 11, the artist has claimed that the LEGO company, whose plastic bricks are an internationally popular toy, has refused to fill a bulk order on “political grounds.”