De Buck Gallery is excited to announce that British pop artist, Philip Colbert, unveiled HOUSE OF THE LOBSTER at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN). This is the artist’s first exhibition with an archaeological institution.
The site-specific show, which opened January 26, 2024, hosts a variety of the artist’s practices– from marble and bronze sculptures to vast oil paintings. Each piece, influenced by the deep history exhibited at the museum, traces the significance of lobsters in art history. Noteably, Pompei VIII, a central work in the show that is reminiscent of a greek relief as it domineers the exhibition floor with its size and ominous battle scene between a lobster, moray eel, and an octopus.
Says Colbert:
On my first visit to the MANN, I was blown away by the mosaic. After studying historical battle scene paintings over many years, I was suddenly struck by the profound influence that mosaics like this had on artists such as Rubens. Its epic scale reset my understanding of the great battle painting. I was challenged with a work that was grand in scale, complex in composition, and exquisite in detail. The absence of certain elements, lost to the passage of time, imbued the artwork with a sense of mystery, leaving room for the imagination to fill in the gaps.
What I love most about art is how it can blur the metaphysics of time, intertwining the past, present, and future. Mosaics, such as the “Alexander the Great” mosaic, exemplify how ancient blueprints in art history, especially those from antiquity, profoundly shaped the Renaissance. Unfortunately, this connection isn’t always publicly acknowledged or well-known.
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