Room 5: Sislej Xhafa and Piero Golia

In the fifth room, dialectic slipperiness and continual swerves between tragedy and comedy will turn up in the works of Piero Golia and Sislej Xhafa, hovering between lived life and imagined life. 

1. About the Artist: Sislej Xhafa

Sislej Xhafa works across mediums and dimensions in order to explore and, oftentimes, further obfuscate the social, political, economic, and quotidian complexities of modern life. “Reality is stronger than art,” Xhafa says. “As an artist I do not want to reflect a reality, but I do want to question it.” His research-based and participatory practice, which he has referred to as examining the “politics of interruption”, has a humor that is tongue-in-cheek at its most docile and subversive in its extreme. Read more.

Images: Y, 2009-2011, Photo: Eliane Rutishauser; Portrait: Sislej Xhafa, Photo: Dylan Don; Sislej Xhafa, Parallel Paradox, 2013, Courtesy: GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin, Photo: Angela Zuin

3. About the Artist: Piero Golia

Los Angeles–based Conceptual artist Piero Golia is interested in the theatrical possibilities of art. His work includes such stunts as compacting a bus to fit into a booth at the Los Angeles Art Fair (Untitled, 2008) and installing a large white globe atop the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood that lights up when the artist is in town (2010). Read more.

Images: Untitled (Bus), 2008, Photo: Joshua White; Portrait: Piero Golia; Untitled (My gold is yours), 2013, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery and Bortolami Gallery, New York, Photo: Roberto Galasso