Rossella Biscotti
From October 9, 2026 to January 18, 2027, the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici will be presenting the exhibition Black sun: Oil and Contemporary Art, which continues the series of events launched by Villa Medici in 2022.
Following Stone Stories, inspired by Roger Caillois, and then The Song of the Sirens, devoted to water, this new exhibition uses the theme of oil to address the question of artworks in the era of global warming and of our civilization burning.
More specifically, the exhibition explores the impact of oil on contemporary artistic practices and on our imaginaries, reshaped by modernity. Conceived as an exploration of the relationships between art and oil, it brings together works that question the way in which the oil industry has determined power dynamics between North and South on the basis of extraction of natural resources, particularly in the postcolonial period.