Very interesting Mose about the connection - in my view that bolsters / confirms Jose's standing in the contemporary art world as a very serious player.

Hi
Does anyone know how much Parla's ceramic items for selling for at this show at Genova? They must be much less than his paintings, correct?

See pic here:
www.highsnobiety.com/home/the_daily_news/archive/2008/april/04/jose_parla_memory_documents/index.htm

Thanks in advance.

Found this online, interesting read

Innovative Storyteller

by Carrie Scozzaro

Calling Jose Parla a graffiti artist would not be entirely off the wall. Sure, he uses spray paint and the distinctive lettering style found on underpasses and concrete walls — bubble lettering, bold perspective letters and the newer, enigmatic wildstyle. But Parla is more than just a graffiti artist, a moniker that perpetuates the supposed schism between “high” and “low” art. Instead, consider Parla a novelist with an unusual method of storytelling.

Parla’s images read like an urban travel history, incorporating the work of “writers” (aka street artists) that he experiences during his forays into various concrete jungles. Using aging techniques to suggest typical urban walls — painted on, written on, scribbled out, painted over, covered with handbills — Parla recreates a sense of place. Miami (where he was raised) and New York City (where he now lives) are featured destinations. Each urban space and the artwork it inspires is a product of prior travelers (taggers) whose indelible marks Parla may incorporate into his paintings.

Yet sooner than Parla can capture the essence of a place, it has already changed: A new tagger has left his mark, obliterated the old, rewritten history… for the moment. Graffiti stories have no beginnings, no ends; they’re never told the same way twice.

Thus it is a story of street culture: nameless, faceless writers whose words are sometimes indistinguishable to the audiences who are gaining appreciation for Parla’s work. “The Run Kid,” for example, is the only recognizable lettering in “Run Kid,” a 4-foot-square painting in ochres, black splotches and muted values. (For all I can tell, it could be saying “arts writers are idiots.”)

This contextual irony (storytelling that isn’t being read) isn’t lost on Parla, who no doubt knows his Pop Art history. He knows all about Jean-Michel Basquiat, the tagger known as Samo. When Basquiat became Andy Warhol’s prodigy, the art world went gonzo (while nonetheless remaining perplexed at Basquiat’s scribbles and seemingly arbitrary markmaking). Also during the 1980’s, Keith Haring was drawing chalk cartoons on the black paper covering subway advertising panels (technically defacing public property). He parlayed his designs into a thriving shop selling T-shirts while at the same time wowing the art world at the ultra-hip Tony Schafrazi Gallery and a variety of international Biennale exhibits.

Similarly, Parla transforms and capitalizes on something that’s often dismissed as not art-worthy. Graffiti is generally valued only to the degree that city leaders are willing to pay to stop it, cover it up and punish the people who put the images on their shiny new walls. Moreover, it’s often considered vandalism by the same segment of the population who are now shelling out big bucks for Parla’s artwork. More irony.

As much as Parla tells the stories of others, he also tells his own story: born to a family of Cuban exiles in Miami, lived in Puerto Rico, then Miami, then traveled a lot. He went to art school in the ’80s and now lives in New York. He began showing in the late ’90s, frequently at the Modern Primitive gallery, and began to develop the concept of “segmented realities” or “memory documents” of his travels.

Soon Parla was showing with masters like Lee Quinones and at locations throughout New York, including the reputable Chelsea Museum alongside European pioneer Mimmo Rotella, whose ’60s-era style included working with graffiti and torn posters. Parla began exhibiting in Japan — where graffiti art is huge — as well as booking commercial gigs with folks like Nike. His custom-painted clothing commemorating Los Angeles-based shoe designer UNDFTD is featured in Juxtapoz magazine. His work has appeared in the Miami Herald, in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and in Rolling Stone.

And during the first week of October, Parla will be artist in residence at Whitworth College’s Koehler Gallery. Associate Professor of Art Scott Kolbo, who directs the gallery and is a respected printmaker in his own right, deserves kudos for bringing a cutting-edge artist like Parla to Spokane. In addition to videos, photos, prints and paintings in the gallery, Parla will create a painting for Whitworth’s permanent collection and teach a printing workshop (the proceeds of which will help fund future residencies).

Kolbo’s description of Parla’s work as “expressionist” is spot-on. His colors are Arshile Gorky — deep reds, earth tones, black, muted grays — with aerosol blooms like Helen Frankenthaler, pale ochre and sky blue. Parla expresses an energy similar to Jackson Pollock’s action paintings, including the element of the subconscious markmaking that informed them. Consider too Parla’s exhibition title, “The Mystic Writing Pad,” which derives from Freud’s catalog of psychological terms. According to Freud, “The surface of the Mystic Pad is clear of writing and once more capable of receiving impressions … If we imagine one hand writing upon the surface of the Mystic Writing Pad while another periodically raises its covering-sheet from the slab, we shall have a concrete representation of the way I tried to picture the functioning of the perceptual apparatus of our mind.”

Parla describes his work as “a contemporary palimpsest,” referring to writing material, usually parchment, which has been used over and over, even after the original writing has been erased — a form of the mystic pad. For Parla, the creation of each painting documents the process of becoming: a story within (or on top of) a story, on top of another story, ad infinitum. Layers of reality frozen, like film cels, and released, recycled. Graffiti-like surfaces are not what they appear to be. There is more to them — and to Parla — than meets the eye.

um, yeah, but its actually just taggin innit?!?

Great lyrics for a song!

right im now properly confused, one has said they have Parla Prints, the liberman gallery has one, but i read a post on here about someone who spoke to Jose's bro and he was sure that Jose has not and will not do a print. Anyone know the score?

I know for a proven fact that Parla has done AT LEAST 6 different prints.

$700! loving the original price. what you reckon the secondary market will be on it?

All the info on the prints is here

banksyforum.proboards82.com/index.cgi?board=peoplesgallery&action=display&thread=20371

Sorry, it was me that his brother told. I guess his brother needs to brush up on his knowledge. That said, it was 5am and he was pretty drunk. Nice guy tho'

Just read a good article about Cy Twombly and his upcoming show at the Tate on the "other" forum. While reading it i couldn't help but think that some of his comments could easily be about Parla as well as Twombly, e.g.

"Ever since he has painted grand, brave works that are at once abstract and literary, that demand to be read while also being hard, perhaps impossible, to read. This makes him sound difficult, and he is, but his work has a sensuality that is immediately, humanly rewarding."

Parla's work is effectively literary,in terms of tags, and abstract and can be very hard to read( I have managed to read his Ease tag on one of the canvasses I've got but still looking for others!). Not sure it's sensual but it's got real energy to it.


Also -

" His use of graffiti means being alive to what it represents - the dirty life of the street"

This is what Parla's work represents isn't it? Some of his work looks as if he is trying to bring the graffitied wall, with all it tags and grime, into the gallery. The use of tags, plaster, tar, paint, etc. helps him achieve that. You only have to look at his 'Pell Street' and 'Canal Street' pieces to see the effect.

I know the Twombly/ Parla comparison has been made before but it was interesting to read this and make the link through the description rather than comparing the paintings directly.

I may send the writer an email with a couple of links to Jose's work and see if it answers his question on whether "young urban artists are alive to the energy and chaos of the city".

The chances of him/her reading it are probably nil though but at least I'd have tried!!

back on topic... cheapest parla in the business.

framedart.walmart.com/browse/results.asp?fk_Artist=7086&nav_t=artist

Am I crazy for thinking Parla's paintings blow Twomblys out of the water?

They just seems richer, more fluid, more depth, more textures. More everything.

Slam me now. I can take it.

Just swore out loud when I saw the price for those rugs!