He transformed via Veneto into an aquarium and invaded with canvases hyper pop multi-layered oil in strong colors the Monumental Complex of San Salvatore in Lauro. The arrival in Rome of the British artist Philip Colbert certainly did not go unnoticed, who defined the capital as the “definitive background” to contextualize his work. If on the one hand Colbert recognizes in his lobsters – which in some way represent his alter ego – a certain “natural design”, on the other he identifies them as the perfect reference to a digital transposition, with clear environmentalist reference, which he recognizes as more and more urgent.
A few months ago he launched a community project on the metaverse on the web: “Lobstars”, a long series of 7,777 NFT lobsters, which allow collectors to obtain citizenship of Lobsteropolis City, an entire city dedicated to lobster, which Colbert has founded on the 3D virtual world platform “Decentrentraland”. The revenues from the virtual project were then donated to research in favor of the welfare of marine animals. Colbert, graduated with a master’s in philosophy from the University? of St. Andrews, he spent months working in the Department of Robotics at University College London, to deepen the study of these aquatic animals and translate this knowledge in an appropriate way through the digital.
The Scottish artist defined digital art as a “perfect storm”, which can be an excellent support, even in a satirical key, for virtuous purposes: “The technological possibilities of artistic expression through contemporary digital technology – he explains – are defining new phenomena. Digital art represents a global way of presenting art to the world. The traditional art world has been largely ruled by the market, but with the rise of NFTs, things are rapidly changing. There is enormous democratic potential for artists to connect with a wider audience and push the possibilities of how art is consumed. The metaverse, for example, is like a virtual exhibition platform where the artistic experience can realize a greater potential ”. And at the environmental level, digital art is opposed to materialism: “it is the idea that people appreciate, not the physical object. I also love the way digital art eliminates shipping costs: NFTs are much more efficient! ”.
In the current exhibition in San Salvatore in Lauro, open until January 8, created by Bam srl in collaboration with Studio Philip Colbert and Catherine Loewe, the artist presents a selection of his most famous works, already exhibited around the world, from the Tate Modern in London to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, from the Hong Kong Museum of Art to the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow and in well-known galleries such as the Sejong Gallery in Seoul or the Saatchi Gallery in London and Los Angeles. Eighteen works, including the series of sculptures in white Carrara marble that reproduce the lobster in classical scenes: the fight with the Minotaur, the cutting of Medusa’s head or the fight with the snake as in the Laocoonte sculptural group.
The references to his imagination can easily be traced back to Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist, but also to the techniques of Paolo Uccello, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck. Twelve large sculptures in aluminum, bronze and steel instead parade along via Vittorio Veneto, with references to Duchamp’s Urinal, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers or Damien Hirst’s Shark. In his artistic practice Colbert combines the study of the classics with technological horizons as logical evolutions, exploring the models of contemporary digital culture and its relationship with a historical-artistic dialogue: “I am very inspired by the history of art – he observes – I love the painter De Chirico, whose metaphysical scenes had a profound impact on my visual practice. I believe that the reality of time is a sort of stratification of past / present / future, all at once”.