José Parlá: Segmented Realities

José Parlá: Segmented Realities presents a group of ten sculptural paintings by José Parlá that suggest cultural fragments salvaged from urban sites that have experienced social and cultural upheaval and transformation. As do segments of the Berlin wall, Parlá’s sculptures bear witness to waves of history that seem to be inscribed on their surfaces, told in an expressive and poetic language of the street. These works act as palimpsests, surfaces bearing layers of marks, on which ensuing generations might imagine their own manifestos and declarations of selfhood.

This installation was a prologue exhibition in anticipation of Imagining New Worlds, which opened at the High Museum of Art on February 14, 2015. The exhibition was divided into three parts: a retrospective of twentieth-century artist Wifredo Lam and responses to Lam’s legacy by Parlá and Atlanta-based artist Fahamu Pecou.