Xavier Bueno: "Petrolio"

The work documents, as in a cinematic sequence, the oil production chain: from the location of  the wells to oil extraction and refining. A concatenation of images suspended in a rarefied light, with the logic of the Renaissance frieze. The impressive machines of the Centrale Montemartini, preserved in the Boiler Hall, is the backdrop to the painting, interacting in a natural way with the tangle of pipes, masts and drills that Bueno has imagined as a background for the figures of "Oil", creating an exciting relationship between the framework and the museum that houses it. The intent of Xavier Bueno is celebratory and dreamlike at the same time: "Oil" transforms the concreteness of the oil processing in an emblematic image of the industrial process, the effort of the workers: they become solemn figures and transmit the memory of Italy's Boom.