Oil constitutes one of the most important resources of the modern age in our global society. In light of increasing planetary warming, we are on the brink of a radical transformation into a post-fossil era. For a successful transition towards a sustainable future, understanding our present day culture in terms of its entanglements with the oil industry is a prerequisite.
The exhibition Reflecting Oil, part of the eponymous artistic research project led by artist Ernst Logar, intensively explores this substance in connection with various concepts and phenomena of our petromodernity.
The departure points for the exhibition are interdisciplinary workshops and crude oil experiments in cooperation with the Montanuniversität Leoben (University of Leoben Department of Geoscience, formerly Department of Petroleum Engineering), the Petrocultures Research Group (University of Alberta, Canada), and international experts from diverse fields of knowledge.
The exhibition investigates the resource fossil and its impacts on our society from various angles. A holistic view of crude oil is needed to understand the substance in all of its facets. To this end, a focus is placed on the perception of its sensual qualities (e.g. color and smell) and presenting crude oil experiments, which Ernst Logar has taken as the basis for the exhibited artistic works. In a separate exhibition area, the artist sheds light on how petroculture, spurred by the crude oil refining process, influences global mobility, modern lifestyles, and the world of consumer goods.
The featured artistic works reflect petrocultural phenomena in our contemporary culture. In addition to Logar’s works, the exhibition showcases the artistic and scientific explorations of the participants of the Reflecting Oil Colloquium (Angewandte, June 2022). The results of this interdisciplinary research project provide important insights for the necessary social, cultural, and technological changes towards sustainable energy sources.
Program:
The exhibition will be accompanied by a program of interdisciplinary discussion events, with experts and artist tours as well as various art education formats:
9 Oct, 24 Oct, 5 Nov, 17:00
Artist tours through the exhibition with the perception of qualities (smell, color, etc.) of various crude oils
9 Oct, 18:00
The Blackened Specters of Depth
Lecture by Reza Negarestani. In collaboration with Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures
12 Dec, 19:00
Book Presentation: Reflecting Oil publication (Verlag für moderne Kunst, 2024)
