“A surface, whether it be a wall, a canvas, or an object of sculpture, serves as a palimpsest for him. I think there are,” he said. Michael Lukes Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, curator of the 2014 exhibition “Jose Parla: Segmented Reality” Parla’s first large-scale museum show.
“That impulse can be traced back to ancient wall paintings,” continued Rooks. “When we think of other objects that evoke similar social and cultural upheavals and transformations, like, for example, parts of the Berlin Wall, they are witnesses to history, whose surface has a particular meaning to the beholder. Marked with the maker, it can be lost.Rooks sees Parlá in this sense as a realist, because “he digs up our own experience is”.
Parla’s skill is to find dignity in the coincidences of time, the stalactite surfaces and gentle traces of the city’s cityscape, things that accumulate over time and are eventually lost.
Not surprisingly, the restlessness that characterizes his paintings is reflected in his schedule as well. He’s already working on his next project, a presentation at the Brooklyn Museum. kana art, in Seoul, and curated shows in Istanbul and Italy. As might be expected, he also denies the term. “I wouldn’t call myself a curator,” he laughs. “It’s like anti-organization operatives.”
Jose Parla: Polarity
Through August 24, Library Street Collective, 1274 Library Street, Detroit, (313) 600-7443. lscgallery.com.