This website uses different types of cookies. You can read more about this in our Cookie Statement. You can indicate your cookie preferences via the "Change settings" button.

In search of a probably non-existing oil-well in Montana - A CONTINUOUS PROJECT, ending with a two step tango in Vienna and the end is not yet in sight

Barbara Jean

Solo exhibition

30 September – 8 October 1983
Vleeshal (Map)

Curator: Anton van Gemert

Barbara Jean. Exhibition view. Photo: Jelle Binsma | In search of a probably non-existing oil-well in Montana - A CONTINUOUS PROJECT, ending with a two step tango in Vienna and the end is not yet in sight | Barbara Jean

I travelled to America in search of an oil source and discovered a nuclear rocket base (a modernized 3-head Minuteman) on land that I do not own in Teton County near Chocteau, Montana, Township 23 North, Range 3 West, Section 4: Lot 4 , SW ¼, NW ¼ W ½ SW 1.4, Section 5: SE ¼ NE 1/4. I own the mineral and oil dishes, not the domain itself. This division, not the surface, but the right to go into the depths – the right to access the invisible or inconvenient – describe so completely my artistic philosophy that I decided to unite this in a project: a quest. This quest not only brought me to the foot and hills of the Rocky Mountains, also to unexamined valleys and parts of my psyche; confrontations with 'oilmen', unidentified relatives and my past. Incidentally, a ‘Performance in Vienna’ and a walk on the land in Montana, delimiting the borders, following an old and untouched Native American path; Placing next to each other seemingly disparate elements in order to create another order, another system of reality. This is my way of working: fragmented and connected. The rocket installation is real (although not visible: it is underground, like oil), the two-step tango is not real - other than 'the dance of life', two steps ahead, one step backward, and the tidy balance. The tango is characteristic of drama, distortion, and power struggle.