JOSÉ PARLÁ – SURFACE BODY / ACTION SPACE
2015-09-14José Parlá has emerged as one of the most innovative painters of his generation, having spent decades establishing a unique style that transmutes the language of cities worldwide. Parlá’s experience, from 1980’s Miami, to friendships with legendary artists of the 1970’s and 1980’s New York scene, adds a potent and personal undercurrent to his painterly engagement with the history of American Abstract Art.
In Surface Body / Action Space, Parlá produces exuberant paintings and sculptures that historicize the duality of his identity and contextualize his work in Neo-Expressionism and Realism. The artist allegorizes painterly gesture of texture as the body and form of the works, and writing gesture as a performance aspect. Both paintings and sculptures depict political connections between the body as government and its extremities as the people.
In this exhibition, Parlá investigates the history of 20th century painting and its impact on the duality of his Cuban American heritage. His investigations link the historical perspective of painters like Cuban artist Wifredo Lam, the American Abstract Expressionists Clifford Still and Cy Twombly, the international Italian artist Mimmo Rotella, Turkish artist Burhan Dogançay, and the Spanish painter Antoni Tàpies.
Opposite – Habana y Cuarteles, 2015
Exhibition runs through to October 31st, 2015
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery
505 West 24th Street
New York
10011
