William Cordova

Lead Artist

William Cordova is an interdisciplinary cultural practitioner born in Pueblo Libre, Lima, Peru. Lives and works Lima/Miami/New York City. Cordova’s work addresses the metaphysics of space and time and how objects change and perception changes when we move around in space. 

He received a Bachelors of Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1996) and an Masters of Fine Arts from Yale University (2004). 

William Cordova been an artist in residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, American Academy in Berlin, Germany, Museum of Fine Art in Houston’s CORE program, Headlands Center for the Arts, Artpace, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council among others. He has exhibited in the US, Latin America, Europe and Asia. His work is in the public collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Yale University, New Haven, CT, Museo de Arte de Lima, Lima, Peru, Ellipse Foundation, Cascais, Portugal, Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL, La Casa de las Americas, Havana, Cuba among others. Cordova was represented in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, 2010 Museum of Modern Art/PS1 Greater New York exhibition, an overview presentation of contemporary artists whose contributions to the arts have had a significant influence in society. In 2011 Cordova was invited for his first one person museum exhibition in Europe, yawar mallku: royalty, abductions y exiles at La Conservera, Murcia, Spain and also awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. Cordova was included in Prospect.3 New Orleans Biennial; 2014 and the 12th Havana Biennial in 2015 at Casa de Africa, Havana, Cuba. 2016 included, SITE Santa Fe Biennial, New Mexico, Southern Accents, Nasher Museum, Durham, NC. In 2017 Cordova was awarded the Michael Richards Artist Award by LMCC, NY and the Florida Prize by the Orlando Museum, Orlando, FL.  

Recent solo exhibitions include, his first career survey exhibition, 13th Havana Biennial, Cuba, In Plain Sight at Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington (2019) and on the lower frequencies I speak 4U (alquimia sagrada) at Sikkema Jenkins, New York, NY, Forthcoming solo exhibitions include Galerie Florian Schonfelder. Berlin, Germany and Livia Benavides 80M2. Lima, Peru (2020). 

In 2021, William Cordova was named a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship. Presented by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Fellowship aims to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color, or creed.