Jose Parla in Italy, by Daniel Silk on Mar 18, 2008 11:23:49 GMT 1, www.iltrifoglionero.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=14&Itemid=38

JOSÉ PARLÁ
MEMORY DOCUMENTS

March 29th – May 10th 2008
The Galleria Il Trifoglio Nero is delighted to announce an exhibition of new works by José Parlá to mark the occasion of his first show in Italy.
As Manon Slome of The Chelsea Art Museum writes Parlá is fascinated with how the city constructs itself and functions as a palimpsest, upon which the experiences of those who pass through are materially inscribed on decaying walls. He sees the city as a vertical grid, from the bridges, to the streets, down to the subterranean warrens of train tunnels, pipes and wires connecting to people living life inside apartments.
The construction of the city and the passing of time find their equivalent in the way he attacks a painting, how he sees the need to layer his surfaces the way the city itself is layered.
As Parlá himself explains in conversation with his brother Rey “I call my works ‘Memory Documents’ because they become fragments of places I’ve been through. I am not only using paint to create my paintings, but I am also collecting bits of paper from walls, old newspapers, chunks of materials from the street or subway stations to reuse as collage onto my own surfaces and rework them until the colours of mould, rust and deterioration are right for the composition. The process may take weeks or months.

In 2005 I had the opportunity to participate in an exhibition by curator Manon Slome at the Chelsea Art Museum with Italian artist Mimmo Rotella.
At the museum I installed two paintings - at wall size - both being the sum of 75ft. Together they are titled: Conversations with Rotella. One painting was Tremont Ave and the second Canal Street. Tremont Ave, the painting - was inspired by walls in the Bronx Avenue of the same name. This piece is layered with posters collected from streets in the Bronx - covered in names and signatures made in the style of people who have either passed away or are artist I once looked up to while growing up. The idea is to pay homage to their names”. Each painting bears the name of the location
or experience from which it draws its source.

José Parlá was born in 1973 in Miami into a family of Cuban exiles, José Parlá moved to Puerto Rico at a very early age before returning to Miami again when he was nine. He currently lives and works in New York, and only recently traveled to Cuba for the first time.
Parlá’s paintings have been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions; at Art Basel Miami Beach, in London with Futura at Elms Lesters Painting Rooms, as part of the New Grand Tour with RoStarr, Deanne Cheuk and Suitman in Hong Kong, at Galerie du Jour in Paris and with Mimmo Rotella in New York.
A fully illustrated catalogue featuring texts by Francesco Sborgi and Greg Tate will accompany the exhibition.
Gallery hours : Tuesday – Saturday 14.30-19.30

Galleria Il Trifoglio Nero
Palazzo Ducale
Piazza Matteotti 80-82
Genova, 16123, Italy
www.iltrifoglionero.com