To comprehend Cordova’s latest works, let’s travel back through history. Frank Lloyd Wright was a world famous architect who built a home in Oak Park. Atahualpa was the last emperor of the Incan empire. Mark Clark was an American general. Fred Hampton was involved in the Illinois Black Panthers. Somehow, these disparate icons spanning centuries and countries are linked together. Cordova’s zeitgeist represents a shifting culture. There’s a print out of Googled images of Tupac Amaru. Rapper Tupac Shakur’s mug pops up the most instead of the 1500s Incan leader. Sectioned purple and black pieces made from construction paper hang side-by-side symbolizing anarcha-feminism. Three bricks stacked on top of another allude to architecture and Cordova’s own Peruvian culture. Cordova uses found objects and archival news stories to express historical references including a book sleeve containing “Wright” written on the spine for the African American author Richard Wright, not Lloyd Wright. A picture of a pyramid with glossy magazine clippings stem forth with words “Neither you or me or them but us” written demonstrating we are in this together. A video of Tupac Shakur dubbed in Spanish changes our perspective on culture. From Shakur to Amaru, Cordova extrapolates world history’s fertile and conflicted past. (Garin Pirnia)
Through Feb 16 at ThreeWalls, 119 North Peoria, 2D.
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