William Cordova
(Peruvian, b. 1969)
Untitled (Narratives), 2012-2016
Polaroids with custom ceiba wood shelf
2.444 x 21.125 x 1.125 in.
Gallery Purchase during the 2016 Art Acquisition Party with contributions from Malu Alvarez ’02, Jane Avinger, Susan Beaumont, Armando Bellmas, Lydia Bittner-Baird, Chai Lu Bohannan ’14, Elizabeth Bradford, Caroline Brooks ’15, Im Chan, John Christian, Howard Daniel ’72, Dan Drayer, Rosemary Droney, Jennifer Sudul Edwards, Emily Mehta Farlow ’11, Donna Ferguson, John Ferraris, Monica King Friel, Anna Grumman ’19, Kate Hall ’16, Richard C. Halton ’77, Elizabeth Harry ’14, Scott Harry, Stephanie Glaser ’92 & Thomas Hazel ’92, Burkhard Henke, Joan C. Huntley, John David Ike ’13, Caitlin James ’14, Chandra and Jimmie Johnson, Amy Clemmons King ’97, Jamie Knowles ’10, Nan & Bill Loftin ’81, Fred Lopp ’63, Frank Lord ’89, Susan Norman McAlister ’85, Dan McLawhorn ’70 & Rob Hazelgrove, Louise Mohamed, Kate Nation, Sherry Nelson, Ginny Newell ’78, Madeline Newman, Lia Newman, Sara Nordstrand ’14, Elena M. Paul ’85, Annie Porges, Tatum Pottenger ’14, Sara Pottenger ’79, Jeff Prince, Julia Rich ’14, Sam Riehl ’15, Barbara Schreiber, Lucy Sexton ’16, Holly Sinkway, Tom and Kathe Stanley, Elizabeth Stern, Mary Taibl, Brad Thomas, Ian Thomson ’15, Bob Trotman, Linda Vista, and Russ & Lyn Bolen Warren ’83.
William Cordova’s mixed-media sculpture centers around his research on Fort Mose in St. Augustine, established in 1738 by the Spanish governor of Florida as the first legally sanctioned settlement for runaway African slaves and Native Americans fleeing British persecution. After East Florida was ceded to the British in 1763, most of the inhabitants migrated with the evacuating Spanish to Ceiba Mocha, Matanzas, Cuba, which is where Cordova gathered the ephemera, film, photography, and sound material for his 2016 exhibition at the Van Every/Smith Galleries, ceiba: reconsidering ephemeral spaces. In the exhibition, Cordova addressed transcultural migration by linking these early migrations with the movement of more than eighty Asian, Black, and Latino individuals from the United States to Cuba between 1968 and 1971.
This work includes seven framed Polaroids which the artist discolors, distorts, and misaligns to draw out notions of memory while substantiating the object they depict. While the machete is just an image, and therefore a passive version of its original self—shattered, caged and merely projected—it still carries weight and intensity, drawing out its threat, and bringing the memories it represents into the present.
Biography
Cordova earned his BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago (1996) and an MFA from Yale University (2004). He has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, and the Center of Contemporary Art, Murcia, Spain, among others. His work has been featured in the Whitney Biennial, Miami Biennial, and in group exhibitions at the Seattle Art Museum; Studio Museum in Harlem; and MOMA PS1, Long Island City; among others. His honors include the Florida Prize In Contemporary Art, and an Art Matters Grant, along with residencies at such institutions as the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Cordova has published numerous scholarly essays and regularly engages in curatorial work. Currently represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co., Cordova divides his time between Miami, New York, and Lima, Peru.