Among the graffiti turned gallery artist set, we could make a pretty strong argument that Jose Parla is at the top of this set. We’ve told you about him here and here, and we can be sure we’ll keep you up date on his work in the future. As if you needed to find an excuse to hop on a plane to Italy, Jose Parla’s new show at Il Trifoglio Nero in Genova March 29th through May 10th. More information about the exhibit can be found on a PDF off Il Trifoglio Nero’s site here.

Thanks to Josh Spear for the tip.

You may recall our previous post on the reigning champ of fine art graffiti Jose Parla. We are happy to announce that he has released his first book- City Scapes from Spoonfed Press. This new work is the memoir of Parla’s City Scapes show at Art Basel in Miami as well as an amazing chronicle of his work. City Scapes is available through Spoonfed’s website for $38 and you better believe we bought one.

For those who are still asking the “Is graffiti really art” question, we finally have an answer and his name is Jose Parla. The cursive stylistic gestures of street tags shine through the non-words Parla layers over and over. Together they imply the effect of one generation of taggers painting over another until all of them blend together. The textures evoke a dirty urban canvas, reproduced to live inside a gallery for our viewing pleasure. Just as hip hop evolved from lo-fi street music to the polished sounds we know today, graffitti has now officially moved up in the art world to the point where it’s ready to hang in the MOMA.