José Parlá: Gesture Performing Dance, Dance Performing Gesture
Gesture Performing Dance, Dance Performing Gesture is the first commissioned artwork for the BAM Fisher and José Parlá’s first commission in Brooklyn. The painting, which measures 37 wide by 7 feet tall, continues on Parlá's plan to build a painterly history through layers of calligraphic and gestural marks. These works are based on a few distinct types of source material: the purely abstract, which comes in the form of dabbing, gesturing, and layering of paint; collaged materials and detritus from the streets, which may include type or other writing and images; and writing, easily the dominant material in these works, which fills and often obscures its contents in successive layers. Writing and seeing are linked in several levels in Parlá’s semiotically inflected paintings; both modes often overlap and are present in the same painting. This serves as a reminder that we are not passive bystanders; we are active participants in a world that our senses produce for us, from moment to moment.
Role: Commissioner
Date: June 2012—Present
Location: BAM Fisher, Brooklyn, NY
Artist: José Parlá
