Projects
Far Rockaway Writer's Library, Queens, New York, 2024
Where language and knowledge come together. A collaboration with Snøhetta and José Parlá.
The new Far Rockaway Library in Queens is designed as a collaboration between Snøhetta and Brooklyn-based contemporary artist José Parlá to reflect Far Rockaway’s diversity and dynamism. Serving as a community gathering place and resource for knowledge, the library symbolizes resilience and provides a platform for shaping Far Rockaway’s future.
University of Texas at Austin, 2018
Commissioned by the University of Texas at Austin’s Landmarks program, Amistad América is a monumental painting reflecting Austin’s landscape, urban fabric, and layered cultural history through collage, textured surfaces, and Parlá’s signature calligraphic marks.
Located at Guadalupe Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the work honors the region’s intertwined Indigenous, African, and Latin American histories. Its title evokes friendship, the origins of the name Texas, and the historic La Amistad case, while América highlights shared histories, migration, and cultural exchange across the hemisphere.
Curator: André H. Bober
Landmarks
North Carolina State University, 2013
Nature of Language (2013) is a written painting inspired by walks through Raleigh and encounters with its historical and cultural landscapes. Combining words, gestures, names, and hieroglyphic forms, it creates an abstract visual language—part diary, part poetic landscape. Rooted in calligraphic traditions, the work explores language as a reflection of our present and a bridge between people.
Acrylic, ink, and Gamvar on wood
Snøhetta Architecture for Hunt Library, NC State University
16 × 16 feet
One World Trade Center, New York City
One Union of the Senses is a permanent mural installed in the lobby of One World Trade Center. Created with the concept of synesthesia in mind, the work transforms color, gesture, and emotion into a visual expression of unity. It stands as a love letter to New York City and to the resilience, energy, and connection that define it.
Segmented Realities, 2015
Segmented Realities is a series of three sculptures representing Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Miami. Made from steel, fiberglass, and epoxy paint, the works explore migration, memory, cultural exchange, and layered identity through fragmented forms and richly textured surfaces. The installation was presented at the Standard High Line in New York as part of Body, Surface / Action, Space, organized by Bryce Wolkowitz and Mary Boone.
12th Havana Biennial, Cuba, 2015
As part of the 12th Havana Biennial, Segmented Realities presented ten sculptural paintings by José Parlá. Drawing on fragments of urban sites marked by social and cultural upheaval, the works layer expressive, street-inspired marks that evoke histories, identities, and imagined futures. This segment of the Havana Biennial was part of the Detras del Muro program curated and organized by Juanito Delgado.
Polarities, Library Street Collective, Detroit 2020
As digital strategies continue to expand in the art world, Library Street Collective’s SITE: Art and Architecture in the Digital Space offers a more meaningful connection between visual art and the built environment. Through storytelling, architectural history, and artist-led perspectives, each exhibition responds to its digital setting and explores the relationship between art and place. Parla’s Segmented Realities extends this exploration by examining how physical and digital spaces shape our perceptions of place, memory, and experience.
High Museum of Art, 2015
The sculptural Paintings from Parlá’s Segmented Realities series (2015) are freestanding, double-sided structures designed to resemble freestanding, decayed fragments of excavated city walls. Originally debuted at the High Museum of Art and later installed outdoors at The Standard, High Line, these works serve as heavy, physical "memory documents" that preserve the ephemeral nature of changing cityscapes.
Yuka Tsuruno Gallery, Tokyo Japan, 2013
Haru Ichiban / First Wind of Spring / Through the Tokyo Alleyways—Her Voice Sings (2013) reflects José Parlá’s longstanding relationship with Japan. Created for Prose, the painting explores poetic, gestural mark-making, translating the atmosphere of Tokyo’s alleyways into layered movement, rhythm, and color.
8 x 45 feet mixed media on canvas
Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2012
Commissioned by Brooklyn Academy of Music for a permanent installation for the building, Gesture Performing Dance, Dance Performing Gesture was created on-site by José Parlá. Spanning an 11-by-2-meter canvas, the work reflects his signature spontaneous, performative style and is currently on view at BAM Fisher.
Oil, acrylic, enamel and plaster on wood
7 x 37 feet
Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York 2013
Diary of Brooklyn is a site-specific mural by José Parlá, commissioned by Barclays Center. Drawing on the borough’s layered history and vibrant culture, the work brings together gestural marks, calligraphy, and abstract forms to create a dynamic visual portrait of Brooklyn.
Diary of Brooklyn, 2015
Acrylic and oil paint on wood
10 feet x 70 feet
Wrinkles of the City Havana, Cuba, 2012 JR and José Parlá
In May 2012, JR and José Parlá collaborate on their iteration of The Wrinkles of the City: a huge mural installation in Havana, undertaken for the Havana Biennale, for which JR and Parlá photographed and recorded 25 senior citizens who had lived through the Cuban revolution, creating portraits which Parlá, who is of Cuban descent, interlaced with palimpsestic calligraphic writings and paintings.
Concord Project, 2011 Toronto
Commissioned for Toronto’s Concord CityPlace, The Bridge was one of two monumental murals featuring José Parlá’s layered abstraction, calligraphic gestures, and handwritten inscriptions. The works explored memory, history, and community, honoring cultural figures whose influence endures across time.
Concord Project, 2011 Toronto
The Names that Live But Sometimes Fade While Time Flies, 2011
Commissioned for Toronto’s Concord CityPlace, this monumental mural featured José Parlá’s layered abstraction, calligraphic gestures, and handwritten inscriptions. Alongside The Bridge, it honored artists and cultural figures while exploring memory, history, community, and enduring influence.