This exhibition explores the relationship between fossil fuels, contemporary forms of power, and the imaginaries of desire. It focuses on the cultural history of fossil fuel modernity in Spain, particularly during the Franco regime, tracing a genealogical line that connects the past and the present.

The dictatorship promoted a series of oil exploration projects aimed at guaranteeing the country's energy sovereignty during the period of autarky, while simultaneously fostering international cooperation to reduce the regime's isolation. As a satire of that fossil anxiety, Rafael J. Salvia's film ¡Aquí hay petróleo! (1955), which gives the exhibition its title, showed how the expectations of finding oil were disappointed in the Castilian town of Castilviejo.

Through numerous images from various state and private archives, it becomes clear how the dictatorship generated a series of cultural narratives designed to counteract and overcome the perception of backwardness in its integration into the rhythms of industrial modernity. Following the failure of colonial projects, the avant-garde aesthetic of energy infrastructure and industries played a redemptive role in the history of Francoism. These projects were seen as having the potential to bridge the gap between the grandeur of the national spirit and the scarcity of natural resources required by modernization policies. This infrastructure established a link between energy and well-being that, while not disregarding the regime's legitimacy, projected it toward a future that left behind the trauma of the Civil War.

¡Aquí hay petróleo! It raises a fundamental idea: fossil modernity is not just an industrial policy program. It is also a source of collective imaginaries. The curatorial narrative incorporates the reflections of researcher Cara Daggett, who has defined the relationship between male subjectivity and the use of fossil fuels through the concept of "petromasculinity." One of its sources of emergence was the fascist exaltation of the culture of war and the cult of the leader during the interwar period. Francoism reproduced these imaginaries around the crusade of the Civil War and the tractor as a symbol of economic autarky. Later, with the rise of developmental policies, the private automobile evoked the expectations of happiness and freedom that we associate with the idea of ​​progress, while simultaneously reinforcing the structures of patriarchy.

Updating this historical framework, the exhibition shows how these worldviews constitute the subjective substrate upon which contemporary petro-masculine cultures are reconstructed, employing new formats such as digital images, social media, and video games. This occurs at a time when the fossil fuel world order that emerged from World War II is being shaken by the threat of climate change, the need to implement an accelerated energy transition, the antifeminist backlash, and the rise of sadistic, fascist, and genocidal world leaders.

Image credits: Calatrava. Calvo Sotelo Complex in Puertollano [General view. Night view] Juan Miguel Pando Barrero, February 1971. Pando Archive, Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain, IPCE, Ministry of Culture and Sport MCD