Wednesday, August 27, 2014

NY, NY: III

Week three of my travels in Australia and I thought that while I am away from my home base in NYC...I would bring some of NYC back into my world. All this week I will be reposting images of art exhibitions that I have seen in New York over the years. There have been many, so this represents just a few of my favorites...

Walls, Diaries and Paintings


As many of you know, I have a love affair with graffiti. I saw an exhibition in NYC in 2011 that really spoke to me and took the art of graffiti to a new level. Walls, Diaries, and Paintings at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, showed the work of Miami-born, Brooklyn-based artist Jose Parla. Parla created 15 new, mixed-media works that documented urban life in such diverse cities as New York, Istanbul, Havana, and Tokyo.

Using a combination of free-form, calligraphic markings and urban graffiti, Parla has recreated the sense of excitement, danger, and vibrancy inherent in city living. He has managed to capture both a sense of history and a feeling of modern edge at the same time.  

I always love when galleries are transformed and for this exhibition, the main hallway was used for a site specific installation that perfectly ushered you into the main room.


The pay phone was the perfect, authentic touch.


He captured the essence of so many international cities and many of his pieces feel as though they could have been torn off the walls of a building.



Others pieces are more abstract in nature and make use of swirling and curling calligraphic markings.



The dimensionality and layers of city life are captured in wonderful, highly textured detail.


5 comments:

Jo Murray said...

FABULOUS STUFF!!!!! I love all that peeling off, and layers of writing.

PocketSize said...

Wow, what an incredible exhibition! It reminds me of a piece of the Berlin Wall that I saw in Wiesbaden last year.

Karenliz Henderson said...

I love graffiti/street art and all the layers. Jose Parla's faces on the wall look so life like. I love them. Thanks for sharing.

Brian Kasstle said...

WOW! I wish you could have seen the LA exhibit at the LA Museum of Art. It was GIGANTIC! It went on and on and on. Amazing. It STILL inspires me.

Parabolic Muse said...

Makes me want to reproduce some of this on my work table. Just awesome.