25 Jun 2018

william cordova now's the time: narratives of southern alchemy

Pérez Art Museum Miami

Reviewed by Elisa Turner

Making the most of a minimalist aesthetic, william cordova freights every surface and mark with the metaphoric abundance of haiku. The decision to abandon upper case letters could seem childish and sloppy. But this humble format, he says, alludes to an interest in activist writer and poet bell hooks. cordova's simple typography speaks to his transgressive art.

Over sixty works from 1993 to 2018 are created with surprising materials and media: vinyl record jackets, Peruvian stones, correction fluid. His deep interests in music, architecture, cinema, and cultural histories intermingle to transform the recycled ordinary into rare treasures. Often but not always the intermingling yields poetic alchemy, altering ways to understand art's imaginative gifts.

daniel boone, pat boone y mary boone (2008) unfurls undulating streams of delicate drawings of tires, moving through layers of tough colonial history in art and industry. It maps an evolving terrain.