Indian artist Sachin Bonde’s solo ‘Soil Oil’ in Dubai’s 1x1 gallery shocases the importance of kerosene in rural India and the crime and corruption associated with its supply to the significance of fossil fuels in the global economy. The show’s title work hangs on the first wall visitors encounter upon entering the exhibition space.A battered old globe has been fitted with a kerosene lamp head at the top while a long wick emerges from its base. On the facing wall is ‘The World’, a world map etched in gold leaf onto a rusted metal sheet that bears graphs indicating global oil consumption. The two pieces are in dialogue; together, they can be seen to summarise the show.Sachin’s works over the last four years have been about the dynamics, maps and networks of movement of petrol and kerosene, and their relationship to realpolitik. In effect, he ends up mapping the world’s networks of pipelines that run underfoot, and that have been the cause of so many wars and invasions, since World War II, and especially foregrounded since 1991 to the present.The war for fuel, is also driven by fuel needed to prop up war. Without fuel, no tankers can be mobilised or fighter planes fly. Innovations in chemical petroleum, its technology and its supply, changed the dynamic of geographic interests. To many, petroleum—the pumped black liquid from under the surface of the earth, is viewed as a resource curse, spiralling countries into war, corruption, and environmental devastation.Speaking about the exhibition Sachin says, “Kerosene is an essential commodity in rural India. But the supply at government-run ration shops is limited, so people are forced to buy it illegally from the black market, which is controlled by unscrupulous and powerful fuel mafias. I have seen how people have to struggle to get enough kerosene for their needs, and how they become easy prey for criminals who sell adulterated oil at high prices. The news coverage of oil wells being blown up by fighter aircraft during the Gulf War in the 1990s made me realise that the same thing was happening on a global scale. In 2011, my interest in the subject was further spurred by the news of a government official in India being beaten up and burnt alive for trying to expose an oil adulteration mafia. Since then I have been exploring in my work the dynamics, maps and networks of movement of petrol and kerosene, their relationship to politics, and their impact on our lives and our planet.”Many of Sachin’s works follow the meta-worldly outlook almost till abstraction, using maps, flags, and fighter planes, sweeping across Sudan, the South China Sea, the US, Brazil, Argentina’s Falkland Islands, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Japan and Saudi Arabia, siting various global wars in history, and in the present. An Uncle Sam’s hat is globalised, but the artist also takes this large world mapping, of pipelines, instability, and war, to another site—that of the ration shop. The ration shop not of a large city, but from the rural interiors of Maharashtra.In some of his works, Sachin shows that oil is like liquid gold for some countries, but for many it has become a resource curse that has led to war, corruption and environmental destruction. “The World” features maps of oil producers etched in gold leaf on a rusted metal sheet, along with figures and graphs indicating the barrels of oil they produce and consume. The artist has put gold leaf on the beak of a kerosene beaker imprinted with a map of the UAE to speak about the prosperity and progress flowing from the judicious use of the country’s oil resources.While Sachin may see the scarcity of oil or its adulteration on one hand, on the other hand there is some kind of parallel being set up in the exhibition, of our historic commodification of desires. In proverbial fashion, Sachin uses animals—the camel, the deer, the elephant, the rhino, the rooster—within his work.Sachin was born at Darwha, in Yavtmal district in 1985. He completed his schooling at Darwha, starting art education at SPCM Nagpur, then moving to Mumbai for his BFA from 2007-2011 at the Sir JJ School of Art. He was awarded a teaching fellowship at Sir JJ School of Art from 2011-2012, and completed his MFA in Printmaking from 2013-2015. The title of his debut solo exhibition, ‘Soil Oil’, is a literal translation for the name for kerosene in India. It is known as soil oil, in Hindi it's ‘mitti ka tel’.Sachin Bonde’s Soil Oil runs until June 30, 1x1 Gallery, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai.
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