Last Oil, 2008
Oil on canvas
41x
Eventually and evidently the last drops of oil will be
sucked up and the last of the substance that currently makes our modern world
go round will be history. Once the flagship of fine art, now
in the face of a media unspecific artfield, the
medium of oil painting faces a similar threat of becoming an artistitic dinosaur. Referring to modern paintings
presumed endpoint, the black monochrome, this painting points to the recurring
claimed obsoleteness of the media of oil painting as well as its persistent
presence and – as the case with crude oil - its commercial saleability and
fluctuating prize according to demand.
The reference to ‘last oil’ as a sacrament related to fatal outcome
underlines the finiteness of this matter but also a hope for a transformation
into a metaphysical afterlife; the artwork and its aura, or should we say
theoretical context.