Opens Friday, November 7th, 6pm – 9pm
On View November 7th – 28th
Gallery hours: Saturday & Sunday 2pm – 6pm
New work by Lewis Colburn
In 1993, the Sandia National Laboratories released a report on marking a storage site for expended nuclear fuel 1. Given the half-life of spent uranium, the message would have to remain intelligible for millenia. The message endorsed in the report is apocalyptic, frightening, but also strangely bland. It carries none of the why , no story, it is simply a robotic warning about physical danger. In that sense, while it is meant to persist for ages, it is the inverse of a monument.
A statue coming to life is a common imagining; a figure stepping down off its pedestal after standing stiff for ages, perhaps confused by the jarring new world around it. It is easy to imagine a monument not knowing its purpose. By definition it was placed after the fact, it did not witness the things it is meant to commemorate. It is a messenger with only a partial understanding of its message. Like a ghost, it carries unfinished business.
A Ghost at the Feast brings together three new sculptural works by Lewis Colburn, drawing from the language of monuments, the built environment, and the narratives embedded in found materials. Rather than monolithic objects, the works are contingent, precarious, yet precisely constructed assemblies combining found, discarded items (a rusted alley gate, a battered six-sided die, a photographic lighting tripod) with meticulous replicas of historical sculptural forms. Together, the works reflect on the inadequacies of our existing narratives, ideologies and infrastructure in a moment of accelerating change and rupture.
- Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant , Sandia National Laboratories, 1993.
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Lewis Colburn’s work has been shown internationally and throughout the United States, at venues including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan, and Locust Projects in Miami, Florida. Colburn holds a BA in studio art and Russian language from St. Olaf College, and a MFA in sculpture from Syracuse University. Colburn has participated in numerous artist-in-residence programs including Franconia Sculpture Park, SculptureSpace, and RAIR in Philadelphia. His works have been featured in Sculpture magazine, as well as the Philadelphia Inquirer. He teaches sculpture and 3D design at Drexel University, where he is an associate professor.
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