Jose parla exhibition 9th September 2019, by 25127096 on Jul 19, 2019 18:41:12 GMT 1, ISTANBUL’74 presents ISTHMUS, the first-ever exhibition in Turkey of internationally acclaimed artist José Parlá.



A tribute to the history of calligraphy in Turkey, ISTHMUS will meet audiences at Akaretler Sıraevler between 9-28 September, running parallel to the 16th Istanbul Biennial of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts. Inspired by a scientific approach to the geography of Istanbul, ISTHMUS will feature Parlá’s new body of work, which he defines as “imagining what calligraphy from my part of the world could look like and represent to future generations” and consists of works on paper and paintings, as well as ceramics produced in collaboration with the established ceramics company Gorbon, whose approach to design is rooted in traditional Turkish handicrafts.



The opening reception for the exhibition will be held on 9 September 2019, between 18:00-20:00. The reception is open to the public.



Cuban-American contemporary artist José Parlá (b. 1973, Miami, Florida) will be sharing his latest works of art inspired by Turkey’s unique geography in the exhibition ISTHMUS, opening on the night of 9 September 2019 at the historical Akaretler Sıraevler in Beşiktaş, İstanbul.



Parlá’s concept of “Isthmus” signifies “a strip of land with the sea on either side forming a link between two larger areas of land” in the scientific terminology of geography in old Turkish, such as the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, the Panama Canal, and the Bosporus River, and Parlá’s calligraphic mode of image production as a means of cultural expression forms the basis of this multi-faceted exhibition. Istanbul is a strip of land connecting two continents, Asia and Europe, physically. For Parlá, symbolically, and metaphorically the city becomes a bridge uniting Eastern and Western cultures.



For the exhibition to be held in Istanbul, Parlá has been working on a new body of works on paper and paintings in his studio in Brooklyn, New York. For his Istanbul project ISTHMUS, the artist presents references to the calligraphic tradition and memory of the city whose history spans millennia, drawing inspiration from such renowned museums and collections as the Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum. The artist has also produced new ceramic works through collaboration with Gorbon, a long-established signature name in ceramics and design in Turkey.



Parlá’s works range from canvas paintings to large-scale public murals to photography, video, and installations, which have previously met audiences in Paris, Tokyo, London, New York, and Havana, among other cities. Preparing for a large exhibition to be held in Hong Kong this year, José Parlá adopts an expressionist approach based on improvised movement in his works, as well as such methods as the use of multiple layers and incorporating various found materials from daily life in his compositions. This is a reflection of the research-based approach to “urban environments” that the artist has been foregrounding in his work. The works of José Parlá, which feature the “living textures” of the global cities he visits, are part of the collections of such reputable institutions as the British Museum and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba.



The artist’s works have also met audiences at the Neuberger Museum of Art (New York, 2018), the SCAD Museum of Art (Savannah, 2017), the National YoungArts Foundation (Miami, 2016) and the High Museum of Art (Atlanta, 2015). Among the group exhibitions and biennials that have featured José Parlá’s works are the Beyond The Streets, New York exhibition (2019); GLASSTRESS 2019 collateral exhibition of the Venice Biennial, U-M Museum of Art University of Michigan (2017); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York; (2016) Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College, NC (2016); and The Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba (2012).



Among the permanent public art projects of the artist, who, according to art critics, summons “psychogeographies” with some of his works, are: University of Texas at Austin (2018); ONE World Trade Center, NY, NY (2015); North Carolina State University’s Hunt Library in collaboration with Snøhetta, Raleigh, NC (2013); Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY (2012) Brooklyn Academy of Music, BAM Fisher (2012); and Concord City Place, Toronto, Canada (2010).



José Parlá gained international acclaim for his monumental mural "ONE: Union of the Senses," produced for One World Trade Center, the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in New York, and the largest canvas painting of its kind in the tallest building of the Western Hemisphere. The artist is set to open two personal exhibitions, the first to be curated by Dr. Dieter Buchart, opening this year at the HOCA Foundation in Hong Kong, China, and the second at the Bronx Museum of Art in New York next year, curated by Manon Slome.



Starting his career with the murals he painted on the streets of the Cuban neighborhood in southern Miami in his teenage years in the early 1980s, José Parlá studied at the Miami Dade College, the New World School of the Arts and the Savannah College of Art and Design. Seeing interest from such world-renowned artists as Jay-Z and Beyonce, Parlá’s works across 30 years that “range from abstraction to calligraphy” according to contemporary art critics, were compiled in the publication In Medias Res, published in 2014. In an interview, Parlá describes this abstract language with the following words: “Calligraphy has the gesture of the human body within its poetic movement, and although it can be literal, it can also be a form of abstraction. Contributing to American street writing sub-culture, I wanted to create a universal style that could be compared to traditional calligraphies from around the globe. This helped me to imagine how I could incorporate the gesture of a passerby into my paintings that would tear an advertising poster or write a political message on a wall.”



Having lived in various parts of the world throughout his career, Parlá witnessed with his family the destruction of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 during his art education, and the artist’s works thoroughly inherit the dazzling burden of the walls of the world and their public, free, anarchic diversity of expression. With his obstinate, passionate yet candid style, José Parlá comes up with rather compelling questions with regard to which side of the wall we stand and what we see and express on either side of the space we inhabit, and with ISTHMUS, his project for Istanbul, he succeeds in bringing the timbre of calligraphy and graffiti simultaneously to this ancient city.