Ana Cordeiro

Ana Paula Cordeiro is a Brazilian national, New York City -based visual artist working primarily in the book form. The co-author of a book about making books called Bookforms, she has also co-organized the multi-media installation Introspective Collective at The Clemente. She was awarded a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and an Honorable Mention at the International Human Rights Arts Festival Creators of Justice Award for her essay “Citizen”. In the fall of 2023 she accepted the Dean’s Graduate Scholarship for the Arts at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU.

Artist books can be a solitary practice, but as the Introspective Collective manifesto states, no artist is an island. Ana Paula thrives in the shared space, having been a part of the Center for Book Arts communal shop for her entire career. She was a resident at the LMCC Arts Center in Governors Island and a research fellow at Hispanic Society Museum and Library, which became her sponsor for a regrant by NYSCA. Ana Paula has an extensive exhibition history, and her artist books are collected privately and institutionally.

Requested to produce a “100-words general statement”, she came up with:

Coherence and consistency are keywords for coping with my photographic memory. My autistic aspect struggles with the multifaceted stories of each encounter, the many versions of ourselves we create – which by themselves are harmless, until they start conflicting with one another. We edit events and words on auto-pilot, Science says.

Keeping tabs on hypocrisy can fill several books.

Incoherently and inconsistently I witness as we move on, leaving behind all-but-linear narratives – the many books within books of our selves. The method of my artistic inquiry is in the making of books. The artistic inquiry itself is the making of books.