Petrified Petrol Pump

Puerto Rico–based artist duo Allora & Calzadilla’s work often brings together material elements from diverse social, geographical, and cultural systems into a single object. These principles of physical and temporal displacement are exemplified in Petrified Petrol Pump through the geological and conceptual processes of sedimentation. The sculpture, which looks like an obsolete gasoline pump fossilized into stone, reimagines a conventional old-fashioned gas pump as a sci-fi relic of the Anthropocene, the era marked by significant human transformation of the earth’s geology and ecosystems and defined by the burning of fossil fuels. The pump’s humanoid shape embodies the enduring legacy of an economic system centered on extracting, distributing, and consuming petroleum. Its energy and processes of metabolic transformation are an irreducible part of what it is to be a subject of petro-capitalism.

Crafted from fossil-filled limestone, the sculpture blurs the boundaries between natural and artificial, geological time and modernity by integrating traces of prehistoric life forms with machinic and anthropomorphic elements. The fossilized prehistoric shells embedded in the piece act as geologic witnesses to the long processes of anaerobic decomposition that yield the raw material for petrol-based energy production. Conversely, the pump’s various elements, such as its two arm-like hoses or the fuel gauge resembling a face, enhance the sculpture’s ominous aura, associated with carbon emissions, oil spills, and fracking-induced ecological catastrophes. Although the sculpture lacks specific branding of any oil company, it has been identified as resembling a BP pump, which connects the work with the environmental catastrophe caused by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

The work’s commanding physicality establishes the gas pump as a totem of the carbonized world at the dawn of the twenty-first century while simultaneously confronting viewers with the destructive consequences of humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels and the ethical implications of corporate greed. By raising questions about the values of contemporary society and the long-term sustainability of our “fueled” culture, Petrified Petrol Pump serves as a poignant reminder of the urgent need for environmental stewardship and collective action.

(Text written by TBA21 and used as wall label in the exhibition "The Ecologies of Peace", C3A, Córdoba, 2024)