Through his abstract paintings, the Miami-born, Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá explores themes ranging from memory, gesture, and layering, to movement, dance, and hip-hop culture, to codes, mapping, and mark-making. Coming up in Miami in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Parlá spent his adolescence and young adult years steeped in hip-hop culture and an underground scene that involved break dancing, writing rhymes, and making aerosol art. The art form still manifests, in wholly original ways, in his abstract works, which, while decidedly of the 21st century, extend in meaning and method back to ancient wall writings and cave drawings.

On the episode, Parlá talks about his recent near-death experience with Covid-19; his activism with the collective Wide Awakes; and how his large-scale murals at locations including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barclays Center, and One World Trade Center trace back to his early days of painting elaborate wall works with aerosol.

Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[07:37] Rey Parlá

[11:45] Ciclos: Blooms of Mold

[12:19] Augustin Parlá

[13:13] Curtiss School of Aviation

[14:05] José Martí

[16:20] “Phosphene” series

[18:27] “Polarities” series

[18:32] “Breathing” series

[23:25] Wide Awakes

[23:26] For Freedoms

[23:29] Hank Willis Thomas

[23:31] J.R.

[23:35] Wildcat Ebony Brown

[24:28] “The Awakening”

[32:04] “It’s Yours”

[34:17] Snøhetta

[34:45] Ghetto Gastro

[36:50] Craig Dykers

[36:55] José Parlá’s Studio

[38:20] James B. Hunt Jr. Library

[38:22] “Nature of Language”

[38:47] Far Rockaway Writer’s Library

[56:56] “Brothers Back to Back”

[59:51] “Parlá Frères”

[01:00:03] Hurricane Andrew

[01:00:12] Savannah College of Art and Design

[01:01:32] New World School of the Arts

[01:01:51] Mel Alexenberg

[01:02:29] “Combine” by Robert Rauschenberg

[01:06:29] “Gesture Performing Dance, Dance Performing Gesture” at BAM

[01:06:30] Barclays Center mural

[01:06:32] “One: Union of the Senses” at One World Trade Center

[01:06:33] “Amistad América” at the University of Texas at Austin

[01:12:08] Gordon Parks fellowship