Piero Golia I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me (2009)

Piero Golia

I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we foresake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship…
2009
12” Lacquer
12 x 12 in.

From Lord of the Rings, Aragorn’s Speech at Black Gate:

I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails; when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship… but it is not this day! An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the Age of Men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!

Seems like a speech Barack Obama might be tempted to give. Los Angeles-based Italian artist Piero Golia’s work is concerned with heroism — and its obverse, failure — on a grand scale. In Tattoo, 2001 he convinces a stranger he met on the street to have his face tattooed on her back.) Golia co-founded The Mountain School with artist Eric Wesley, whose work also plays with notions of success and failure, especially in relation to the identity of the artist in society. (Neither of Golia nor Wesley completed graduate school but are working and thriving as artists in Los Angeles, a city rich with world-renowned art schools; in fact, Golia’s training is as a chemical engineer.)