Consider the lobsters. Favoured by surrealist artist Salvador Dalí (who thought them rather sexy), these crustaceans shed their shells to grow, emerging from their old exoskeletons bigger than before. That’s part of their appeal for Scottish pop artist Philip Colbert. “I love that the symbol of the lobster is also a symbol of rebirth,” he tells me.
Rebirth connotations make Colbert’s lobsters a neat choice for a takeover of Borough Yards. These Victorian railway arches were regenerated in 2022 by architecture studio SPARCC and real estate investors MARK to create a retail and dining destination near London Bridge.
Called Lobster Yards, this will be the first time that Colbert has undertaken a public art project of this magnitude in the place he calls home. He’s done large-scale installations across Asia, including a city-wide takeover of Macau complete with an inflatable lobster in a yellow submarine floating in the harbour.
There will be no lobsters in the Thames (yet), but Colbert promises a “lobster wonderland” complete with a kooky crustacean disguised as flowers “welcoming people in” and others dressed as sharks. “There's an amazing architectural detail of the columns that hold up the railway at the back of the site,” says Colbert. “They let me create an artwork where it looks like my lobster character's holding up the Tube, it’s a really fun visual.”
The distinctly London Victorian architecture of this slice of south London was another draw for Colbert, who lives across the river in Spitalfields. When we speak he’s just returned from Shenzhen to launch a big show of his sculptures. “Shenzhen is a city of the future,” he says. “They've got flying drone taxis in the sky, and the new development is like something from Blade Runner. So it's amazing to be doing something right next to my studio just a few days later.”
Colbert loves it when his lobsters get out and about. “I like the idea of taking an exhibition out of the museum or gallery context, and bringing it into a much more democratic space,” he says. “It opens the exhibition up to a whole audience that would never necessarily set foot in a gallery, but completely vibe with it.”
People won’t need to get a ticket to see this exhibition, instead they’ll likely stumble across it as they walk through the area. “I love art in the streets insofar as that you'll catch someone in a sort of natural state, so you can surprise people with ideas,” says Colbert.
Does he ever go undercover to see how the public reacts to his work? “Oh yeah, definitely,” he says. “But after a bit of time with me lurking around the exhibition I do get busted.” Colbert hates the stress of shopping and prefers to wear a uniform of his own lobster-themed merchandise, which makes going incognito tricky.
While there are plenty of art history references in Lobster Yards - sunflowers after Van Gough are another symbol of positive energy Colbert returns to frequently in his art - he’s clear there will be no art snobbery here.
“Great art should shake the cage a little bit,” he says. “It should satirize our own sense of pretension and self-seriousness, and it should celebrate the essence of life, like the power of a sunflower.” Or the power of a lobster.
Lobster Yards by Philip Colbert, Borough Yards, 22 August to 30 October.
