ISTANBUL’74 is pleased to present a powerful and timely short experimental documentary film about a painting with the same title: ONE: Union of the Senses by Cuban American artist José Parlá. The film is inspired by Parlá’s centerpiece mural that now spans a staggering 27 meters in length and 4 meters high at the World Trade Center. Starring the people of New York as well as the painter himself, it will be screened at the 6th Annual IstanbulInternational Arts & Culture Festival. The film documents the painter’s gestures, ideas of unity, and creative process on location in his studio, as well as the artist traversing the city of New York and on-site, as he adds the final touches before concluding the painting’s installation.
This documentary evokes a combination of memories, history and a sense of place, yet looks towards the future by celebrating the diversity of the five boroughs of New York. Parlá states that it is his personal love letter to the city where he uses the full spectral abilities of the lens to view the daily life of New Yorkers, their resilience, and strength to constantly create new meanings for the future.
Cinematographer, Max Goldman, beautifully captures the many layers of the city's neighborhoods, walls, train stations, tunnels, people, and it's streets, while also documenting the creative and painterly progress of the work in Parlá’s studio and the painting installation in World Trade Center during its completion.
Rey Parlá, Parlá Studios, and Bryce Wolkowitz have produced the project. The editor on this film is Jeremy Maneval of Consulate, who worked poetically to interpret Parlá's visual direction in synchronicity with the score composed and arranged by EL Michels Affair. The production manager is Stacey Thiel and Joaquin Jutt of Parlá Studios animated the titles for José Parlá’s calligraphy.
Parlá’s intense artistic engagement is similar to the surface make-up of city walls in public space. The memory-like textures move like traces of the past and weave into the present by translating abstract gestures and calligraphic characters into social signifiers and visual language. While Parlá works in various sizes and with different mediums, he is publicly known for his permanent installations of large-scale paintings.
These paintings are found within numerous notable North American institutions from The One World Trade Center in New York City, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, The Barclays Center, Brooklyn, to the Hunt Library designed by the renowned architectural firm Snøhetta in Raleigh’s North Carolina State University, and the Neuberger Museum of Art. José Parlá (1973) was born in Miami, Florida and studied painting at The Savannah College of Art and Design, and New World School of the Arts, Miami. Recent solo exhibitions include, The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Mary Boone Gallery, New York; Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, New York, Yuka Tsuruno Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Haunch of Venison, London, UK.
The artist’s work is in the permanent collections of The British Museum, London, UK; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana, Cuba; The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; POLA Museum of Art, Hakone, Japan; and The Burger Collection, Hong Kong. Parlá in collaboration with French artist JR participated in the 11th Havana Biennial in Cuba; which selected their vertically integrated project, Wrinkles of the City, Havana, Cuba.
