This June (30), British contemporary artist Philip Colbert reveals LOBSTEROPOLIS CITY, his first fully digital exhibition, opening within the ‘metaverse’ of Decentraland – seeing the artist’s lobster universe evolve into its latest iteration. This marks the most ambitious and largest-scale single artist venture to be seen in Decentraland to date.
An open-source Virtual Reality world built on the Ethereum Blockchain, Decentraland is a place to explore and experience through a unique avatar, or even create your own piece of the universe. Set across 57 Land Parcels in the district of Lobster Land, Lobsteropolis City is partnered with Vegas City, one of the largest districts within the Decentraland metaverse.
Curated by globally renowned art auctioneer and dealer Simon de Pury at the Lobster Land Museum, the exhibition includes a series of NFT works available exclusively with NFT platform Super Rare. These include Colbert’s iconic past works Cryptofixtion and Lobster Fountain, alongside new unseen NFT works.
The opening of LOBSTEROPOLIS CITY will take place on Wednesday 30 June, and to mark the event at the Lobster Land Museum, Simon de Pury will also be hosting his first Decentraland auction. Central to the auction is a new NFT artwork created in collaboration with legendary American New wave band DEVO – a hybrid artwork and musical performance titled LOB-STER DE-VO.
In this work Colbert further explores the role digital ideology is playing in the re-birth of a more digitally orientated era for humanity, and the defining role art plays in such times – at the same time paying reference to the use of 3 crucifixions in DEVO’s iconic music video ‘Through being cool’ in 1981. DEVO will also perform a live DJ set at Lobster Land Records store next door to the Museum for the launch event on 30 June.
Forget Cubism, this is artistic expression and experience on another level. With the rise of the NFT, the digital art movement is now a tidal wave, and so many new ideas are possible. Never before has a generation been able to so radically shift artistic possibilities, it’s the perfect storm. For me Decentraland was the best second life platform to house Lobsteropolis.
Philip Colbert
Colbert has been building Lobsteropolis City over the last three years, with composite elements having appeared in international museum shows and through gaming, video and virtual reality platforms. These have included his 2020 Saatchi Gallery exhibition, which opened with a lobster robot-only launch in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and Lobster Land at the Modern Art Museum in Shanghai. This new project, therefore, marks a logical evolution in Colbert’s innovative, ongoing engagement with the digital possibilities of art.
Museum Opening Wednesday 30 June, with live DJ set from Devo To access, click here: https://play.decentraland.org/?position=-103%2C147
https://www.instagram.com/philipcolbert/
©2021 Philip Colbert, Decentraland
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