VILLA MEDICI – FLORENCE
October 9, 2026 – January 18, 2027
From October 9, 2026, to January 18, 2027, the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici presents the exhibition Black Sun: Oil and Contemporary Art, the next chapter in the cycle on the elements launched by Villa Medici in 2022. Following Stories of Stones (inspired by Roger Caillois) and The Song of the Sirens (dedicated to water), this new exhibition addresses—through the common thread of oil—the question of the artwork in the age of global warming and our civilization in flames.
More specifically, the exhibition explores the impact of oil on contemporary artistic practices and how our collective imagination has been reshaped by modernity. An exploration of the perilous ties between art and oil through a body of work examining how the oil industry has shaped power relations between the Global North and South—driven by the intensive extraction of natural resources, particularly in the post-colonial era.
From refineries, pipelines, and offshore platforms to revolutions, coups, oil crises, and climate catastrophes, the artists on display—ranging from Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and Robert Rauschenberg to Monira Al Qadiri, Zina Saro-Wiwa, and Ana Alenso—present a genuine visual and critical history of “petromodernity.” Oil appears here not merely as a resource but as an active force—a complex of material and symbolic flows coursing through the artworks, or even as a cosmological system, a drama of natural and chemical elements influencing politics, economics, and urban life…
The exhibition also examines the strategies oil infrastructures employ to render themselves invisible, as well as their representation for aesthetic and ideological purposes. Particular emphasis is placed on the convergence of artistic and activist practices, which join forces in the struggle against “fossil imperialism”—a term coined by essayist and activist Andreas Malm—to envision a post-oil world.
This exhibition is also the result of the long-standing dialogue Villa Medici maintains with its former fellows. It builds upon research conducted by Morad Montazami—an art history fellow at Villa Medici in 2023–2024—who developed his studies on “petromodernity” there, a concept that lies at the heart of this exhibition.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue co-published by Zamân Books and Villa Medici, featuring a collection of original texts that explore the themes in depth through the perspectives of philosophers, art historians, and researchers.
Texts by: Lotte Arndt & David Castaner, Laura Hindelang, Stéphanie LeMenager, Salar Mameni, Andreas Malm, Amina Adebisi Odofin, Justinien Tribillon.
Graphic design: Walid Bouchouchi, Akakir Studio.
