Reckoning With Time
Reckoning With Time
Signed Print
José Parlá
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33 x 71cm, Edition of 100, Lithograph
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Meaning & Analysis
Reckoning With Time (2010) by José Parlá is a signed lithograph that captures the complex relationship between physical sites of memory, identity, and language lying at the heart of the American artist’s creative practice. Featuring a current of fluid lines against a colourful background, the work claims its roots in abstract expressionism while also sharing affinity with the world of street art.
In 2012, Parlá embarked on a project ‘The Wrinkles of the City’ with French artist JR, creating huge mural installations during the Havana Biennale. Havana fascinated the artist as an example of the urban space, in which advertisements do not appear on buildings and, as a result, their bare walls can "speak for themselves". Exploring how humans create their maps of traces and try to leave marks that could last in the future, the artist has long been interested in the walls as well as the signs, names, and signatures that appear on them. Similarly to St Giles (2009), the surface scrawled with free-flowing lines in Reckoning With Time brings to mind the ancient walls that contain some of the earliest evidence of the human desire to leave a lasting trace. The artist commented in the context of his art: "My work is a contemporary palimpsest of painting and combination of the texture of memory".