José Parlá has received critical acclaim for his works, which lie at the boundary between abstraction and calligraphy. Composed of layers of paint, gestural drawing and found ephemera, his work evokes the histories of urban environments: Parlá is a documentarian of city life. Using the backdrop of world cities, he remakes in paint what may appear to be photorealist fragments of what he sees in the chaos of the metropolis. His paintings reflect the accumulated memories and experiences, the walls that show a place that once was built over, renewed in some other configuration. Parlá paints revelations, the proof of the history of our neighborhoods; his work shows that words, signs and marks come to mean more, over time, in this symphony of diversity that surrounds us. In Media Res concentrates on the body of Parlá's work that stems from his experiences of living and traveling in various countries: his time in Puerto Rico, his childhood in South Florida in the 1980s, extended journeys throughout the southern United States and Central America in the 1990s and most recent travels throughout Europe, Asia and his ancestral land of Cuba. Spanning painting, watercolor, photography and sculpture, this volume shows Parlá at his most versatile and cosmopolitan. José Parlá (born 1973) was recently commissioned by One World Trade Center for his monumental mural painting, "One: Union of the Senses" (November 2014), the largest of its kind in New York City, in the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. He also has work at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn (January 2013) and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (September 2012), as well as having held solo exhibitions at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York, Haunch of Venison (London), Yuka Tsuruno gallery (Tokyo) and the High Museum of Atlanta. In 2013, Parlá was added to the collection of the British Museum in London and the Albright Knox in Buffalo, New York. Parlá lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

José Parlá: In Medias Res

Arts & Photography

Slome, Manon

Tate, Greg

Betancourt, Michael

McCormick, Carlo

Brielmaier, Isolde

History & Criticism

Damiani/Bryce Wolkowitz

In Roots, José Parlá (born 1973) explores the place of his experiences and travels in the development of his work.
Grounded in Parlá’s personal first-generation Cuban American immigrant family story and an ever-evolving practice inspired by “elsewhere communities” and their contributions to America, Roots considers the relationship between local and family history and one’s past, present and future. A photograph of Parlá’s grandfather Agustin Parlá, one of Cuba’s first aviators, is the point of departure for the work―the aviator is an important source of inspiration for the artist as he undertakes his own border crossings, exploring how multicultural environments impact his perceptions of urban space. Published to accompany exhibitions at the National Young Arts Foundation and SCAD Museum of Art, both being something of a homecoming for the Brooklyn-based artist―a SCAD painting alumnus―Roots surveys a recent body of Parlá’s painting and sculpture.

José Parlá: Roots

Individual Artists

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Books by Damiani/Bryce Wolkowitz