William Cordova
Artist Interview – Neiman Center 25th Anniversary Catalogue
LNCPS: Why did you accept the invitation to make prints at the Neiman Center for Print Studies and did you accomplish what you had hoped to do in terms of the finished project?
William Cordova: Avoided the idea of making a print edition, was my initial thought until my friend/artist Rafael Domenech, introduced me to Tomas Vu, artist and Artistic Director of the Neiman Center at Columbia University. My avoidance was due to the limited overtly commercial exposure I previously had with print editions. But unbeknownst to me, I had already been incorporating unconventional printing processes in my work. Tomas gave me a thorough introduction to the Neiman printing facility that left a deep impression on me. The examples he shared complemented many unorthodox ideas I'd been considering. I felt energized at the end of our introductory meeting and started thinking about so many projects I could propose.
My process of working is directly influenced by 10 years of long-term art residencies. This meant no concerns/needs to make products and living expenses were secured by each and every institution. When working in the studio, taking risks, making mistakes is essential for one's development. I was fortunate to be in environments that were conducive to community development where a critical discourse was welcome.
The project for the Neiman Center started modestly with a wooden sculptural piece that functioned as a contextualizing vessel that would encapsulate historical narratives from 1920's Harlem Renaissance to the 1980s Harlem Renaissance. Living in Harlem as AIR at Studio Museum in Harlem (2004-2005) familiarized me with folks, places and local history not often written about or studied. All these sources prompted me to incorporate more components into the original proposal.
Meeting and working with Nathan Catlin, the Neiman Center's Master Printer & Studio Manager, was also very liberating in terms of what was possible to produce. A finished project? Yes, we arrived at the desired resolve for the project but do think we could have kept going if we hadn't set a deadline. Which means there are so many more projects we can hopefully work on in the near future.
LNCPS: How do the prints you made at the Neiman Center relate to your larger body of work?
William Cordova: Content, materials, scale, efficiency.
LNCPS: Had you ever made prints before your residency at the Neiman Center? If not, why were you open to trying printmaking at that time?
William Cordova: Yes, I made photocopy transfers with my sister’s nail polish remover when I was 13 years old. Stone lithography as an undergrad at SAIC. Offset printing at Brandywine Printing in Philadelphia and embossings at Yale University. But all of these were monoprints no editions were ever produced. I tried making my own print editions on a Xerox Machine with homemade recycled paper and collages. The paper eventually disintegrated and damaged the printer beyond repair.
I'd been exposed to printmaking since I was 13 years old but didn't have access to proper art classes in public school. The closest was silkscreen in Mr. Cummings 7th Graphic Design class. I was a slow learner at the time and students would not work with me. I ended up working exclusively on Pin-Hole cameras from that point on. It was a way of staying out of people's way and also realized I enjoyed working in isolation.
When Tomas Vu proposed for me to work on a printmaking project with him at the Neiman Center he also exposed me to all the eclectic projects the institution had helped facilitate with a wide range of artists. It was a combination of past experiences and Tomas’s proposition that prompted me to try and working on a printmaking project this time.
LNCPS: When you came to the Neiman Center did you have a project in mind? How would you describe your collaboration with the master printer?
William Cordova: Harlem was always on my mind, as a guiding light directing me to return and produce something I had not been able to create during my residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem. It wasn't that I tried to produce one during my AIR period (2004-2005). It was more so based on the accumulated urgency to represent, to highlight certain commonalities between Latin America, English Harlem and Spanish Harlem. There was no specific crystalized idea in mind what the printing project would look like but at the same time it was very clear how I wanted to approach the project. It may not make sense in many ways but it's very much like cooking. You make your way with what is available and rely on past experience to provoke improvisation.
Working with Nathan Catlin, Master Printer, was a very rich and rewarding experience. Nathan is like the Orisha, Elegué/Eshu. He is the keeper of the gate but also a master of unpredictability when it comes to suggesting what one may think to be impossible. He was quick to interpret my ideas without lessening the impact I was trying to convey. He was always supportive of me to push in different directions sans restraint. He also valued and respected the idiosyncratic methods I kept adding to the project. Collecting bottles, paper, organic matter from specific historical landmark locations in Harlem. Producing inks made from plants, flowers, dirt. Tomas Vu had introduced me to silkscreen making with soil as an ink. I had similarly used soil to draw and paint with which only complemented our common intent and vision.
Nathan was a true collaborator, facilitator and good friend. You can see this in the way the student employees value his presence as much as I did.
LNCPS: There were many different materials used for this project. Can you tell me about the significance of the soil you used for the prints, the images you chose (the editors posters and their significance), and the record we had made based on an audio recording you took and the X Ray films you found? I didn't realize your interest in photography goes back to middle school - is your use of the Polaroid a throwback to your childhood too?
William Cordova: Biological and natural pigments, flowers, dirt, clay, hair, have been used to paint with since early days of human existence. I was introduced to all of these processes growing up in Peru. Understanding the significant use of these materials and in their proper context. Gold was used for religious purposes as a pigment by the Incas to celebrate the sun god Inti, The Egyptian god, Ra, was celebrated in similar manner. The Maya used sea shells, clay, plants to make pigment's for murals and pottery that have outlasted most archival ink jet prints done in the past 20 years.
All spaces and places have historical links that bind and relate us in one form or another.
There were 1960s political posters I sought and sourced from Columbia University Special Collections Library, The Arturo Schomburg Center, Taller Boricua, Museo del Barrio and NYU Special Collections Library. All these historical materials served as maps or guides providing addresses, dates, locations of mass student/activist led demonstrations against domestic Government oppression and the Vietnam war.
There were also flyers to DJ, Rap and B-Boy contests from the mid 1970s and early 1980s that I studied at some of these institutions.
In regards to the audio recording. I commemorated a specific historical location with a field recording in 2005. It was where musician, Jimi Hendrix with the Gypsy Sun & Rainbows, did a "United Block Association Benefit" concert on 139th Street and Malcolm X (Lennox Ave), Harlem on September 5th 1969. Hendrix was introduced to the Harlem Chapter of the Black Panther Party that evening. One leading Harlem Panther, Afeni Shakur would eventually become Hip Hop artist/activist Tupac Amaru Shakur's Mom. Tupac was named after the last Inca King and guerrilla warrior. The audio recording served as a metaphysical component relating Hendrix, community activism and Shakur through the geometry of sound vibration. All acoustic wavelengths, frequencies have a single task and that is to determine the trajectory of sound rays. The principals of geometric acoustics are the same as geometric optics and what prompted me to incorporate Polaroid 600 instant film. I'd been documenting with Polaroid film since I was 11 years old. Mostly, documenting pages in the Encyclopedia Britannica my Mom purchased for us to help us in school.
For the Neiman Center project, I constructed a lens with reclaimed bottles near these historical sites and attached it to a 35MM Kodak projector lens I found across the street from Harlem Hospital, place where Tupac Amaru Shakur was born. I then placed the 35MM lens on the Polaroid 600 camera and made a make shift micro lens. Then I proceeded to make an edition of 8 photos that resemble planetary spheres and musical modes resembling the Italian Renaissance engraving, Gaffurius's Practica Musicae (1496) based on music of the spheres, a philosophical concept based on celestial bodies, their movements generating music, theoretically. This music though is not audible. It exists more as a harmony, a mathematic equation and religious concept.
Why Polaroid 600 film? Because it cannot be altered nor reproduced.
The idea for exposed X-ray film comes from collecting bootleg music during my teenage years. Music and sci-fi literature was a coping tool growing in Miami during the violent 1980s. Jazz music made its way into the Soviet Union via X-ray film LP's due to the outlawing of Western music in that country during the Cold War. The US also censored communist literature and cinema during the cold war. Accessing exposed X-ray film represented resourceful alchemy... highlighting improvisational tools used to gain access to a mode of self-expression, liberation, jazz. This complemented the economy of the now exposed and discarded X-ray film. Its images of translucent ribs, joints, femurs reminded me of paintings by Aboriginal people from Arnhem land in Australia whose traditions are traced back thousands of years. Rendering the anatomical features of an animal or a human being shows the knowledge to that land
and its inhabitants. Similarly, the X-ray's we acquired from Columbia University hospital in Harlem was a way to synthesize Hendrix's, Spanish and English Harlem without exploiting/capitalizing off any music or the likeness of any individuals. The bones are reflections of vessels, offerings, charged with the sonic resonance and (slight return) of the divine, voodoo chile.
LNCPS: Although your project is editioned, it's a variable edition. You used a lot of hand work: white out, smudges and other non-replicable techniques. Was this an important factor to you as a way to move past the idea of prints as a more commercial medium?
William Cordova: "Lack is a value worth having" William Pope L. (artist)
My family, like many others, struggled to make ends meet in Peru and in the US. Being an artist was not an option in my family let alone buying art supplies. Still, I gravitated towards my Mom's office supplies; white-out, typewriter, mechanical pencils, staplers, ink pens and repurposed paper. I still have the one water color set I won in the 5th grade. I used it sparingly. Maintaining a simple approach in how I assemble my visual work is important to me because the content tends to be very layered. Creating a contrast is important otherwise it all has the potential of collapsing onto itself. I used whatever office supply materials were already at the Neiman Center for my project.
The challenge was in creating something and repeat my actions by hand and not machine. This became tedious but I had to make sure everything had its own idiosyncratic residue.
My practice evolved for a long time outside the commercial art world. This equipped me with different parameters to consciously work with or without. I was and am aware of the commercial benefits of printing multiples and was challenged to create something that appealed, related to Harlem but I also didn't want to make something didactic or get lost in academic onanism of words. Then there is the art market which I didn't want to pander to. Staying focused and maintaining personal values intact is important in achieving anything. If one doesn't invest in personal values then, like ship a drift, one will always be at the mercy of other decisions, trends, etc.
LNCSP: The Neiman Center has a pedagogical mission statement and its workforce is comprised mainly of graduate and undergraduate students. Did this aspect interest you when you decided to work at the Neiman Center? What was your experience like working with the students?
William Cordova: Committed to working with art residencies from 2004-2014 exposed me to many different communities throughout the US. This exposure influenced my way of working internally and externally. Working with students and none art affiliated local folks gave me a different perspective into the world and into my own values as a cultural practitioner. This long process reminded me of growing up in Lima, Peru. Where everything involved community. This supportive way of being protected the young and elderly, it provoked ideas and shared responsibility. It cemented friendships and families.
Working with all the students at the Neiman Center was a welcome experience. One that was about sharing space, ideas, friendship and also mentoring. Mentoring is something I value and practice as a visual artist all the time. It is something I wish I'd had when I was an undergrad and grad student.
LNCPS: A lot of labor went into these prints: collage, stapling, even the production of the wooden boombox. Is labor something that interests you? Or did you choose to make labor intensive prints because you had a large labor force - our students - who were willing and able to help in the production?
William Cordova: That's interesting, a large labor force... no, I would never take advantage of individuals, hired or not. Am not wired to act in that capacity. I tend to do everything myself so working with students at the Neiman Center, assisting in the fabrication process was a new interesting challenge. I instinctually would try and lessen their work load if a component required a great deal of manual labor. I also didn't think about how much labor would be needed. I simply worked on ideas all the time and allowed them to evolve organically. I felt embarrassed and guilty, realizing the students would have to use the typewriter owned by Neiman Centers Master Printer and Studio Manager, Nathan Catlin to have to re-type my original complex designs twenty four times. I remember Yushan Liu, a second year grad student worked on this type written design for an entire day until we realized we had to find an alternative. Nathan, of course, resolved that concern within minutes.
In general, I push and challenge myself in everything I commit to. It doesn't have to be art related to matter. If I don't challenge myself then I don't feel am accomplishing much change. It can be obsessive but it takes that much to stay focused and evolve. You can't have a Ying without a Yang.
LNCPS: For many artists working outside their studios – which is often a solitary space – can have its own set of challenges. How did you find the collaborative nature of printmaking at the Neiman Center?
Willian Cordova: Working through art residencies meant moving to different States, changing studios every year, meeting/befriending new people and communities. Acclimating, adapting, collaborating, sharing, being resourceful, mentoring, understanding space and people are a few things that became an integral part of my practice.
The experience at the Neiman Center was an extension of this experience and one I fully embraced and enjoyed every time I entered the Center.
LNCPS: Did any of the print processes you tried at the Neiman have an effect on your working method back in the studio?
William Cordova: All the printing processes had an effect on my working process. I don't have a studio space per say. I tend to work in an office space and spend most of my time reading and researching. The process we all worked on at the Neiman Center to realize my printmaking project was very involved and it took many intense hours for all the students and staff to complete. I am indebted to their creative contributions. My experience with their openness,
commitment and friendships during our printing project still resonates with me.
LNCPS: Can you talk a bit about the research you did at the Schomburg Center in Harlem and how that influenced aspects of the project you made at the Neiman Center? Were there specific historical narratives that you wanted to address or that found a way into the project?
William Cordova: There isn't very much that people do that does not involve some kind of investigation or research. We research for the right colleges, grocery stores, relationships, neighborhoods, etc. My own research at the Arturo Alfonso Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture started long before my family arrived in the US. Meaning, it all starts at home. Shared family stories, traditions, rituals. They form our early life interests, shape our perception and world views. Dr. Kellie Jones, Art History faculty at Yale University, was the first to suggest I visit the Schomburg Center during my first year in grad school to research Afro Latino history.
Two years later, the artist in residence program at The Studio Museum in Harlem offered me closer access to the Schomburg and other local institutions. Meeting and collaborating with Greg Tate, cultural critic at the Village Voice, Art Historian Johanna Almiron and Johanna Fernandez, faculty at Baruch College who recently published The Young Lords: A Radical History. Doing research can be an ongoing process that leads to new topics. Like a root branching outward creating infinite possibilities. I investigated topics familiar and unfamiliar; theory of R&B, Rock, Salsa, Hip Hop, polytheism, choreography, vernacular alchemy, ontology, transphysics...
Those were a few themes that formed my project at the Neiman Center. Doing research at the Schomburg was continuous and unending. For example, I was interested in similarities between photographers James Van Der Zee and Martin Chambi. Both were self-taught, became known during the 1920s. Both made a living doing portraits and both felt compelled to document all aspects of their communities. Leaving no stone unturned. Van Der Zee lived in Harlem and Chambi lived in Cusco, Peru. I was able to find and compare information on both their richly varied contributions during 1920s Harlem Renaissance and early 20th century Afro-Andean presence in Cusco.
I was also researching Asian and Latino activists from the late 1960s/early 70s. How their presence informed and helped shape alternative urban video co-ops in the lower east side. How that led to the journal known as Radical Software and later the Paper Tiger collective. This type of radical activism influenced visual artists, Beryl Korot, Martha Rosler, Nam June Paik, Rafael Ferrer... musicians Eddie Palmieri, Bev Grant, Willie Colon... helped define Third Cinema and was the catalyst for Rap (Hip Hop) by contributing to the language and aesthetics of the next generation of literary and musical griots; Martin Wong, Eddie Figueroa and The New Rican Village, Afrika Bambaataa, MC Sha Rock, Rammellzee, Ms. Melodie, Miguel Piñero, Lee Quinones, Lady Pink, Leslie Hewitt...
LNCPS: Please share any additional comments or anecdotes about your time at the Neiman Center.
"those who don't have it can't show it, those who got it can't hide it" -Zora Neale Hurston
