February 4 – March 12, 2005

Galleri Christina Wilson hereby has the pleasure of being able to hold the first Scandinavian exhibition by the Italian artist PIERO GOLIA (b.1974).

Both the exhibition's title and its content have drawn inspiration from the working procedures that preceded the opening on Friday. The title arose from the repeated mutual misunderstandings between the gallery and the artist regarding the correct date of the exhibition, and the exhibition's content has been arranged with great respect for the gallery's recent conversion, inasmuch as Golia has added only minimal monochrome elements to the room.

Piero Golia often utilises himself as a medium in his works. When he was represented at the Tirana Biennale in Albania in 2002, he felt that the last thing an impoverished country like Albania needed was art; accordingly, his project consisted of a rowing trip from Brindisi in Italy to Albania, with Golia thereby becoming the first Italian to flee to Albania.

When Golia was invited to be a guest lecturer at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, he created an entirely new project which he presented to the students: he vanished from the surface of the earth in New York a couple of weeks ago, before turning up in Copenhagen last Monday. The idea behind this disappearing act was that the authorities should never learn that Golia had left the USA. Overnight, Golia stopped using his credit cards, mobile phone and the Internet. He then exchanged all his money and went to the casinos in Atlantic City, where he changed it again several times, because exchanged money cannot be traced. Then, without a passport or ID papers, and carrying only a sleeping-bag, he left the country by a secret route. The interesting thing for Golia is that he now and forever will be included as part of the myth of the American artist.

In the presentation of himself as an artist, Golia feels that story-telling plays a key role. The idea is that the story of this journey should be told to many people, so that Piero Golia can finally enter history and become a legend.

Piero Golia is also currently exhibiting at the Perry Rubenstein Gallery in New York, and has also participated in international individual and group exhibitions at such venues as the Prague Biennale 2002, the Villa Medici Academy in Rome and the Centre Rhenan D’art Contemporain in France.