Cristina Cordova’s interest in the body’s expressiveness was sparked by the ballet classes she took as a child in Puerto Rico. “Every aspect of the body is engaged in dance,” she says. “You modulate and optimize every gesture. That clearly transfers to the sculpture that I do, where I want every figure to carry a sense of that energy. I’ve always felt comfortable with the language that generates from the body and creates a communication that goes beyond words.” In one of her bold, almost hyperreal ceramic sculptures at Ann Nathan–Paseante a companado (“Wanderer With Company”)–a standing man carries a smaller one on his back: Cordova says the larger figure is like the “facade that we use to present ourselves to the world. The back is this weird aspect of ourselves.” In Vaquero, a man riding a horned animal has long, uncoordinated-looking fingers on one raised hand. Cordova calls them “spastic,” and says she wanted the fingers to signal both an active mind and someone “incapable of understanding what he’s experiencing. Maybe the animal is more capable.” All the animals here do seem more powerful than the man: the horned creature has an erection, and the two birds on top of the man’s pack appear to be killing each other.
