Born in Miami to Cuban parents, José Parlá’s art reflects his upbringing between the U.S. and Puerto Rico, drawing on Caribbean and Latin American influences like music, dance, and urban decay. His work features hybrid abstraction through unique mark-making, focusing on movement and layering. Pérez Art Museum Miami hosts “José Parlá: Homecoming,” his first hometown solo show, featuring new works and a live mural. After a severe bout with COVID-19 in 2021, which included a coma, stroke, and brain bleeding, this exhibition symbolizes his recovery and return to his roots, showcasing his resilience and cultural identity.
José Pará: Homecoming / Pérez Art Museum Miami. October 6, 2024.
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Exhibition text (excerpt):
Born in Miami to Cuban parents, artist José Parlá (b. 1973, Miami; lives in New York) was raised between mainland United States and Puerto Rico. Influenced by his proximity to Caribbean and Latin American countries, he developed an interest in diverse cultural traits, including Cuban music, hip hop, reggae, calligraphy, dance, and urban architecture and its decay, all of which would become recurring themes in his work. Consistent with his blended culture, Parlá is interested in hybrid forms of abstraction. Through a unique mark-making process, grounded in movement and bodily gestures, Parlá produces a painterly stream of consciousness characterized by addition, erasure, and layering. His physical and textural artistic process challenges conventional visual culture.
Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is honored to be hosting Parlá’s first solo museum exhibition in his hometown. Featuring a new series of never-before-seen works and a site-specific mural, José Parlá: Homecoming will ultimately mirror the artist’s studio. An elaborate, two-part exhibition will allow visitors to observe Parlá’s dance-like technique in real time as he paints a site-specific mural for the first iteration of the exhibition. The second iteration will see the museum gallery transformed and converted into Parlá’s studio—a room full of paint-covered tables, a lively Cuban-inspired record collection, and decades of Parla’s archival memorabilia.
In 2021, Parlá contracted a life-threatening case of COVID-19—he was hospitalized and endured a four-month coma during which he suffered a stroke and significant brain bleeding. A radical departure from the traditional use of space in a museum, this presentation not only represents a homecoming to Miami, but also marks a return to himself and his practice after this experience. Celebrating the spirit of resilience and returning to one’s roots, José Parlá: Homecoming is a testament to the profound connections among personal history, art, and creative expression. In addition to the completed mural and studio re-creation, the exhibition will also feature a number of recent works Parlá created upon his return to painting. The result is a process-focused exhibition highlighting an expressionistic painter who conscientiously engages with issues relating to Cuban and broader diasporic identity.
