The Visiting Artists Program resource guides contain upcoming speakers' biographies, articles, video and audio content, related publications in the Flaxman Library, and additional online resources. These guides may be used in the classroom in preparation for the event, research, or post-lecture discussion.
william cordova: Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series
Tuesday, September 14, 6:30–7:45 p.m. CT
Click here to join via Zoom, Passcode: SAICVAP
This event will be live captioned by CART.
Join us live for a virtual lecture by artist william cordova followed by an audience Q&A.
william cordova (BFA 1996) was born in Lima, Peru, and is an interdisciplinary cultural practitioner. His work addresses the metaphysics of space and time and how objects and perception change when we move around in space. His practice has been motivated by a creative engagement with architecture, geometry, and history; these are essential components in cordova’s life that have shaped his world view. He is interested in the roots of abstraction, the history of textile encoding, and non-linear narratives. He illuminates the synthesis of memory, ritual, and mythology to further disrupt, challenge, and reassess definitions of our collective landscape. His site-specific installation work is both expansive and intimate, intersecting the economy of materials with ephemeral and spatial rhythms. By juxtaposing social political theories with Third Cinema strategies that frame the unframed, cordova manifests subversive visual aesthetics.
cordova has exhibited in the US, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Recent exhibitions include 80m2 Livia Benavides, Lima, Peru (2021); on the lower frequencies I speak 4U (alquimia sagrada), Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, and Galerie Florian Schönfelder, Berlin (2020); 13th Havana Biennial, Cuba (2019); Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2018); Greater New York 2010, MoMA/PS1, New York; and the 2008 Whitney Biennial, New York. His works are in the public collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru; Ellipse Foundation, Cascais, Portugal; Pérez Art Museum Miami; and la Casa de las Américas, Havana, Cuba, among others. He has participated in numerous artist residencies including The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; American Academy in Berlin; The Core Program, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California; Artpace San Antonio; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine; and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. cordova is co-curator of the Greenwood Art Project, an initiative of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre Centennial Commission and the 2020 Prism Art Fair, a nonprofit project focused on African Diaspora artists, and he is the founder of the Miami AIM Biennial (2020). He is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient. cordova lives and works between Lima, Miami, and New York City.
Presented in partnership with SAIC Alumni Relations.
Portrait credit: william cordova. Courtesy of the artist.
Gallery Representation
Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
To Mark the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, Dozens of Artists Are Installing Public Works Around the City
Sarah Cascone | artnet news | May 26, 2021
Prizm Art Fair Goes Virtual With African Cinema as Inspiration
April Dobbins | Miami New Times | December 1, 2020
The Transformative Power of the Arts
william cordova | Yale Alumni Magazine | August 11, 2020
Jan Avgikos on William Cordova*
Jan Avgikos | Artforum | April 2020
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login
Meet William Cordova — Cultural Practitioner, Mentor
Picture This Post | January 16, 2020
In Miami, a Fair for Artists from Africa and the African Diaspora Shines Again
Monica Uszerowicz | Hyperallergic | December 7, 2018
William Cordova’s Narratives of Southern Alchemy
Alpesh Kantilal Patel | Frieze Magazine | September 21, 2018
The Wondrous Alchemy of William Cordova’s Sculptures
Monica Uszerowicz | Hyperallergic | September 13, 2018
Now's the Time: Narratives of Southern Alchemy by 
Prospect. 4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, A Project of Prospect New Orleans by 
Street Level: Mark Bradford, William Cordova and Robin Rhode by Greenwood Art Project
william cordova is a lead artist, along with Rick Lowe, of the Greenwood Art Project, an initiative of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre Centennial Commission.
A.I.M. Biennial
william cordova is the founder of the A.I.M. Biennial, which presents site specific installations created by local artists responding to the historically layered landscapes, landmarks, architecture, and communities of South Florida during Miami Art Week.
william cordova: "on the lower frequencies I speak 4U"
Exhibition catalogue for william cordova’s solo exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. from January 23 – February 29, 2020.
william cordova now’s the time: narratives of southern alchemy
william cordova now’s the time: narratives of southern alchemy (2018) at Pérez Art Museum Miami is the first extensive museum survey of cultural practitioner william cordova.
Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art
Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art (July 13 – September 30, 2018) at the Whitney Museum of American Art investigates contemporary art practices that preserve and foreground Indigenous American notions of the built environment and natural world.
Art21 – william cordova
Art21’s resources about the work of william cordova.
Visiting Artists Program Lecture Recordings from the Archive
SAIC Visiting Artists Program video and audio lecture recordings (1977–present.) Available with SAIC login credentials.
SAIC Digital Collections: Visiting Artists Program
SAIC Visiting Artists Program publicity archive and audio recordings (1977-98).