When did you go to Havana?
I went to Havana for the first time in 2003. I got a family visa and flew directly from Miami. I wanted to meet family who I’ve never met before who are still there. I spent the maximum that was allowed by the Bush administration at that time — 21 days. It was a big experience, a big shock. The most interesting walls I’ve ever seen in my life are in Cuba, because they haven’t had a paint job in 52 years. It’s beautiful in a way, the way that the paint is chipping away and deteriorating. At the same time I don’t have to live in buildings that are decaying, so I can find beauty in it, but people who live there, I’m sure they want some change already.
José Parlá.
You spend so much time documenting your travels when you’re abroad. Do you ever take a break from that and just soak it all in?
When I get home is when I soak it all in. I have a system where I separate the posters that I bring back, and when I go through the photos. When I’m on the airplane, I like the silence up there of not having to answer the phone, or anything oakley sunglasses cheap, to just write. I do a lot of my writing on planes and get my thoughts together up there.
Q.
What makes you want to travel to a specific place? Is it that you have the opportunity?
A.
It’s all random, there might be an opportunity, it might be part of my travels for an exhibition, it might be a vacation, and I just can’t help myself but work. It might be for a friend’s wedding, any kind of reason to travel — I just find it easy to say yes and get on the plane.
A true flâneur, the artist José Parlá records his observations of the streets of cities like Havana, Istanbul, New York and Tokyo, collecting posters, taking photographs and writings on the wall, turning them into a visual diary. Consisting of memories written in calligraphic script layered on fragments of reconstructed city walls, Parlá’s paintings capture bits and pieces of his encounters. Born in Miami in 1973 to Cuban émigrés, and now a resident of Brooklyn, Parlá’s work has evolved into highly complex collages that emulate the various cityscapes he has visited. The Moment recently caught up with the artist to talk about his show “Walls, Diaries and Paintings,” which is at New York’s Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery until April 16.
You document your travels on so many levels, through photography oakley sunglasses cheap, video, sketches and collecting posters. How do you become inspired to create art with all the material you collect?
With making abstract painting oakley sunglasses cheap, I felt that what I was doing and what I’m still doing is translating the many different cultures and many different languages that I’m confronting.
What goes through your mind when you’re walking through a city for the first time? What are you looking for? What do you observe?
It’s all happening really automatically because I’m just always constantly looking and observing people, observing the city itself, the walls. I like deteriorated walls. I like things that are rusted and broken down — it reminds me of the part of society that’s deteriorating. I look for those signs because I find that it explains a lot about inequality, injustice. It explains a lot about the psychology of the city, and I like to use those towards my paintings.
Courtesy of Hatje Cantz“Your History,” Jose Parla, 2010.
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