The Age of Oil

A long out-of-print lost classic, from a pivotal figure of New York’s art and No Wave film scenes.

Originally published in 1987 and long impossible to find, The Age of Oil collects fifteen essays by Duncan Smith (1954–1991), a pivotal figure of the downtown New York art and No Wave film scenes. Drawing on Freud, Lacan, and Derrida, Smith developed a unique style that pushed the strategies of poststructuralism into the realm of experimental writing. Smith’s obsessive pursuit of “cryptograms” in essays such as the linguistic tour de force “Calling All Cars” paralleled and almost certainly influenced his friend Jean-Michel Basquiat’s use of text in his paintings. A candid chronicler of New York City gay life and a sharp-eyed observer of American pop culture, Smith also theorized, most notably in his text “On the Current Symbolic Status of Oil,” that the ubiquity of petroleum products has inescapably structured our language and society. 

This expanded edition of Age of Oil is supplemented with several additional essays, published contemporaneously in periodicals and exhibition catalogues, and collected here for the first time, offering an even fuller view of Smith’s writing at the height of his talent. Simultaneously, Semiotext(e) is bringing out Days in the Clouds, the never-before-published book Smith completed before his death from AIDS.