Pump

AlterWork Studios is pleased to present an exhibition by Artist in Residence Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, “Pump”.

Opening Reception: Saturday, July 18, 2026 | 6PM
This exhibition is on view everyday from 12PM-9PM from 7/18/26 until 7/30/26.

Artist-led event on U.S. oil wars & community speakout/potluck on Saturday, July 25 |6:00 p.m.

Pump takes motor oil and speculative oil imaginaries as grounds for exploring the most significant commodity of the modern era: petrol. Petrol rests on a paradox: it is as mundane as everyday automobile fuel or derivative for artificial food dye, yet as incendiary as a worthy proposition for wars waged on oil-rich sovereign nations. More materially, petrol’s status as both “dirty” (residue-stained hands at the gas pump) and “sacred” (holy, finite, precious) only deepens this paradox. Pump also revolves on oil speculation as a primary indicator for measurement in the U.S.A. imagination, namely optimism in the populace (qualified) and constant growth in the markets (quantified). Westward manifest destiny, upward-bound stock tickers for crude oil, synthetic oil-derived innovations of staggering diversity, even futurist propositions for exploration in outer space all necessitate a bottomless addiction for crude pipelines.   

In the film/video, INFINITEƎXPANSE, the artist’s first-ever command or inference on machine-generated AI creates a new visual field for an oil future that has yet to be: “oil pipeline created between sea and sky in an infinite domain of astral petroleum creation.” The Russian artist Bagarisha was commissioned to provide original music (“The City”). 

In the series I Do Not Love America and Never Have Especially Now, historical book covers and two pages from Upton Sinclair’s 1926-27 novel Oil! – now in its centennial – are reimagined as domestic rugs bordered with Islamic sacred geometry. The title of the series borrows the opening lines of Eddie Glaude, Jr.’s America, U.S.A. The custom-made rugs utilized petro-chemical derivatives in rendering the covers’ images onto silken plush fiber. The Islamic geometry bordering the custom rugs repeat as stenciled imprints onto cotton t-shirts doused in motor oil in Flammable Ones. 

The artist created the Motor Oil Paintings in co-authorship with workers in the local auto mechanic shops surrounding the gallery in Long Island City. Teams of auto mechanics wiped or sloughed off motor oil residue from their hands directly onto primed canvases, preserving the assumed “market value” of every drop of gasoline. The Alter Altars display Fanta Orange, Skittles, and other U.S.-made foods (all banned in Europe) containing petroleum derivatives such as Yellow 5 and Red 40 as sacred consumable objects.

AlterWork Studios is located on the Ground Floor of 40-20 22nd Street, Long Island City, NY 11101. We are located on the west side of 22nd street between 40th and 41st avenues. When arriving, the artist encourages viewers to enter the gallery from the garage gate. To do so, find the roll down gate located approx. 40ft to the left of the studio street door. Follow the ramp around back, bear right and enter the studio’s garage gate.

Maryam Monalisa Gharavi is an artist, poet, and technologist whose work explores the asymptotic limits of knowledge. She is the founder of Oil Research Group (ORG), a one-woman collective investigating oil, data, and extractive economies; in 2023, ORG was awarded a NYFA Anonymous Was a Woman Environmental Art Grant. Exhibitions and performances include Pioneer Works, Sonic Acts, Nottingham Contemporary, Serpentine Cinema, Darat al Funun, Paço das Artes, Recess, KODA, ZKM Karlsruhe, among others. Book publications include The Distancing Effect, Secret Catalan Poem, Alphabet of an Unknown City,  the co-authored books Dictionary of Night and Oil News 1989-2020; and a translation of Waly Salomão’s Algaravias: Echo Chamber, nominated for a PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. Her book Bio is the first to be written on a social media platform while bypassing “big tech” data storage sites. Her writing has appeared in contemporary art publications and journals including Art in America, Women and Performance, Circumference, The White Review, Asymptote, and more. She is Editor Emeritus of The New Inquiry, where she previously served as Editor-at-Large and wrote the open text South/South, cited as “one to watch” by Los Angeles Times. She completed a Ph.D. at Harvard University, an M.F.A. at Bard College, held a postdoctoral Fulbright at Birzeit University, and served as a visiting artist, guest studio critic, and professor at a dozen institutions. She is currently a Visiting Associate Professor at Pratt. Her translation of  Waly Salomão’s Border Fare is forthcoming from World Poetry Books.