Cuban-American artist José Parlá and French street artist JR‘s Wrinkles of the City project has been taking over metropolises from Havana to Berlin. Starting in Cartagena, Spain in 2012, JR and Parlá interviewed and photographed twenty-five senior citizens who lived through the Cuban Revolution. They took these incredible portraits and pasted them onto the sides of buildings, sometimes embellished by Parlá’s signature whimsical line drawings. According to Parlá, “these works are time capsules, mixed documents of memory and research; part performance, as I impersonate the characters that leave their marks on walls.”
The Leda Antonia Machado Mural towers over the corner of 24th Street and 10th Avenue in Chelsea, like a gatekeeper of the galleries that line the surrounding blocks. Her portrait is also pasted onto the wall of a building in Havana. This mural is a stunning collaboration between two extremely talented artists. You simply can’t walk past it without noticing how striking it is.
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery is exhibiting twelve of JR and Parlá’s works from the Wrinkles of the City project until August 2, 2013.
Get in touch with the author @lauraitzkowitz.
