WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CANADA.- The Plug In Institute of Contemporary Arts presents "William Cordova: You Shook Me All Night Long", on view through May 18, 2002. The exhibition was organized by Valery Camarta and Doug Lewis. The unravelling and re-assembly of identity has long been urgent business for many artists. One of the hotbeds for this examination has been the arts scene in Miami, Florida, particularly as the city is a complex melting pot for the Americas. Peruvian-born, Miami-based William Cordova has been featured in exhibitions in Miami, Chicago, Tel Aviv and Rio de Janeiro. In You Shook Me All Night Long, Cordova's first solo exhibition in Canada, the artist looks at identity, celebrity and representation, beginning with the stereotypes of Hispanic men in American culture. For Cordova, the media images of Hispanic men as seedy criminals are masterfully exposed as exaggerated fabrications. Furthermore, through his film, video and photographic installations, the artist pushes our buttons about our complicity in perpetuating these myths. The second set of work included in the exhibition takes these ideas to a more intimate level, as Cordova's series of small-scale drawings use a system of sparse personal symbols in an autobiographical treatment of his life. The subject matter and execution vibrate against each other like a dancer on a booming speaker: finely-rendered microphones and turntables create a record of music culture through an iconography of its tools. Rock 'n roll culture is the filter for Cordova's musings - even his shows carry titles from popular songs in a continuous recycling of meaning and reference and a sense of playfulness permeates the work even while serious issues are brought to the fore.

William Cordova was born in Lima, Peru and lives and works in Miami, Florida. He graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996. He has had solo exhibitions in Miami, Chicago and Fargo, North Dakota.