The problem is how one accepts the rules of reality….If everyone tells you not to jump off the roof or you’ll die, you don’t jump because you trust it as if it were truth. Maybe the artist is the one who’s going to tell you that you can jump, and maybe you’re not going to die. – Piero Golia
In the work of Italian artist Piero Golia, contradictory propositions constantly arise: can the past become the future?…can low end become high end?…can a car accident produce a painting? In this sculptural work, Golia places a common, household design object (painted white) on a plywood pedestal, rotates it 90-degrees, and hangs it on the wall. Suddenly, the viewer is forced to consider the pedestal as Minimal sculpture and the design object as high art visual element. Through a few astute gestures, the viewer’s relationship with these common forms shifts, and we are forced to question the value systems we use to assess the material world and move through life. Golia’s work has been shown in major exhibitions in the United States and Europe, including Uncertain States of America-American Art in the 3rd Millennium, Serpentine Gallery, London; The Gold Standard, PS1, Long Island City; Vesuvius, Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Nothing and the Being, Museo Jumex, Mexico City; Double Tumble or the Awesome Twins, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach; Artist’s Museum, MoCA, Los Angeles; and Premio Italia, Museo MaXXi, Rome. In 2013, Golia’s work was selected for the 55th Venice Biennale.
© piero golia, photo credit: robert mckeever