WILLIAM CORDOVA
B. 1969

william cordova is interested in the ephemeral visuality of transition and displacement, how objects and perception change and adapt within time and space. Moving from his hometown of Lima to Miami at an early age, and briefly living in Houston, Chicago, and New York City, cordova integrates the cultural nuances and histories from these environments within his work. Afro-Peruvian cosmology, Andean architecture, and metaphysics deeply influence cordova’s work, intersecting and merging with contemporary visual languages. Utilizing a variety of materials, including found and discarded objects, feathers, collage, and other reclaimed detritus, cordova’s multimedia practice weaves coded statements on contemporary social systems and economies within the personal history of objects, challenging the functionality of art as a purely aesthetic pursuit.

william cordova (b. Lima, Peru in 1969) graduated with a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996 and went on to earn an MFA from Yale University in 2004. He has been awarded the Creative Capital Grant (2024), John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant (2021), and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2011). cordova has participated in numerous artist residencies including Artpace, San Antonio, TX; The Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine; and American Academy in Berlin, Germany.

cordova most recently organized Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: Meditations on Resilience (2022) at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, which featured three print projects by cordova, Fab 5 Freddy, and Lee Quiñones in dialogue with one another. His work was also the subject of the solo exhibition on the lower frequencies i speak 4 u, at the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD (2022). His first major survey exhibition, now’s the time: narratives of southern alchemy, was presented at the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL in 2018. Notable group shows include The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century, Baltimore Museum of Art, MD (2023); Lux et Veritas, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL (2023); 13th Havana Biennial, Cuba (2021); and Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2018).

His work is included in the collections of the Ellipse Foundation, Cascais, Portugal; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; La Casa de las Americas, Havana, Cuba; Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru; NSU Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; and Yale University, New Haven, CT, among others.


C.V. (PDF)