ABOUT OIL DRUM ART
Oil Drum
Art is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit grass roots art movement that seeks to change
human patterns through meaningful artworks. By using the 55-gallon oil
drum as a metaphor for oil artists transform the drums into provocative
artworks that address global issues about oil such as the environment, global
warming, sustainability, the economy, the energy crisis, our carbon footprint,
and the Middle East conflict.
It also reflects
positive aspects of fossil fuel that has provided economical solutions in
the past century for our needs and comforts.
To accomplish its
international goal Oil Drum Art uses art exhibitions as a means of presenting
artist’s commentaries to the public. The exhibitions provide a forum
for meaningful dialogues between art and society and perhaps make a difference.
Jack Lardis
President & Founder
OIL DRUM ART MISSION
The 55-gallon steel drum is a metaphor
for oil that provides artists worldwide an opportunity to create environmental,
geopolitical, and aesthetic statements about the condition of our society.
This new art form
provides provocative and educational commentaries that will spread throughout
the world via exhibitions and the Internet.
Oil Drum Art will
culminate in a major uncensored international exhibition in America and
become a visual forum for meaningful dialogues between art and society
and that will make a difference.
THE CORE PRINCIPLE OF OIL DRUM ART
Oil Drum Art is a call to
the artists in American communities and perhaps in the world to define
modern human civilization using a powerful symbol as a common medium.
Ancient civilizations are
known more for their art than for their politics. The Oil Drum Art project
is an invitation to bring art into direct contact with our civilization
so as to inform it, perhaps for posterity.
The possessing or controlling
of oil has been a defining policy objective of the 20th Century community
of nations. The oil drum contains the essential energy of our world, without
which our modern civilization could not exist. The drum container in its
vast simplicity as a symbol common to all men, evokes every one of the
forces, greed, hope, peace and havoc that have influenced mankind for a
century or more.
The oil drum when used as
a means of expression will remind the world that art has a place, not just
in museums, but wherever it may be seen and pondered, and not just as art,
but as philosophy whose power will rise from the making of art from a common
symbol that is large enough to embrace it.
THE FIVE
STAGES OF OIL DRUM ART
1. GRASS ROOTS
Oil Drum Art (ODA) was launched
in New Haven, Connecticut in 2003 and its grass roots spread throughout
the state and into New York City. In six years there have been 23 ODA
exhibitions and over 48,000 viewers of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds.
2. NATIONAL EXHIBITIONS
Oil Drum Art will spread
its grass roots nationally by presenting invitational exhibitions in collaboration
with major art galleries and art associations that are interested in making
a change through art about issues confronting society.
3. INTERNATIONAL INSTALLATIONS
The Internet will provide
opportunities to expand ODA internationally with juried on-line exhibitions
and an installation competition that will produce winners who will be subsidized
to construct their artwork in either their country or the United States.
4. INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION
Art Associations
and Cultural Ministries worldwide will be invited to curate a juried exhibition
in their country and then send two selected artworks -- one environmental
and the other geopolitical -- to America for the first uncensored International
Oil Drum Art Exhibition.
5. INTERNATIONAL TOUR
Museums and
galleries worldwide will be offered a touring exhibition of selected artworks
from the first international ODA exhibition. This will complete the
first ODA cycle that will be repeated every three years.
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