Text by Michael Betancourt, Isolde Brielmaier, Greg Tate.
José Parlá (born 1973) derives his art from the accretions and damage of city walls, and the record they supply of neighborhood character and local history. To these collectively authored public surfaces, Parlá brings a consciousness of art history, and the transformations of graffiti traditions dating back to ancient Rome by painters such as Twombly, Basquiat and Kiefer. His mixed media works sometimes employ fresco techniques and include acrylic, oil paints, plaster, posters used as collage, homemade inks and enamel spray paint. Parlá’s archeological works celebrate the chronicles of the urban fabric as a diary: he writes, “as my works evolved, be it paintings, signatures, or even the documentation of these early ephemeral artworks throughout city walls, the works took on the nature of personal journals based on empirical experiences.” This volume surveys his two-decade oeuvre.
"My earliest paintings were made on walls at night. My thought and impulse behind the gesture was as primitive as that of cavemen marking and drawing in their dwellings to assert their existence in a place and time."
José Parlá, excerpted from Research and Memory in Walls, Diaries, and Paintings. Featured image is Parlá's Personal Alphabt, 1997.
"Today, Parlá gives insight into our culture, like an archaeologist, scanning the surfaces of ruins for the patterns and signs, traces and marks left by the human hand. On every sidewalk, in every city imaginable, on every possible surface, to that which lies deeper amidst the fractures of any city's past, Parlá articulates and gives expression to the rapid and ceaseless change of today's world. On the street corners and boardwalks, from New York to Miami, from Cuba to Tokyo, Parlá counters these shifts by recording and lifting the marks left by others, which bear the subcultures of these destinations. The internalized beats and connecting dots that make up the rhythm and lines of our vibrant interconnections--these are the referents that propel José Parlá. What is more, Parlá's process exposes a complex of feelings related to memories, dreams, handwriting, and maps, conveyed through traces and isncriptions that decode the language of the streets."
FORMAT: Hbk, 11.5 x 9.75 in. / 188 pg / 120 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $65 ISBN: 9783775729772 PUBLISHER: Hatje Cantz AVAILABLE: 5/31/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Michael Betancourt, Isolde Brielmaier, Greg Tate.
José Parlá (born 1973) derives his art from the accretions and damage of city walls, and the record they supply of neighborhood character and local history. To these collectively authored public surfaces, Parlá brings a consciousness of art history, and the transformations of graffiti traditions dating back to ancient Rome by painters such as Twombly, Basquiat and Kiefer. His mixed media works sometimes employ fresco techniques and include acrylic, oil paints, plaster, posters used as collage, homemade inks and enamel spray paint. Parlá’s archeological works celebrate the chronicles of the urban fabric as a diary: he writes, “as my works evolved, be it paintings, signatures, or even the documentation of these early ephemeral artworks throughout city walls, the works took on the nature of personal journals based on empirical experiences.” This volume surveys his two-decade oeuvre.
