William Corwin by Saul Ostrow

William Corwin is a New York City–based sculptor, writer, and curator known for exploring themes of archaeology, mythology, iconography, and the marginal. Though he’s an inveterate traveler, Will is a born and bred Manhattanite. Presently, he lives in the same Union Square neighborhood where he grew up, and he’s still in touch with many of his boyhood friends.

I first met him around 2010 at the artist residency Art Omi in Upstate New York while I was the critic in residence. That summer he was making small, clunky, art brut–like iconic objects caste in plaster or Hydrocal. My initial impression of his work was that from a modernist perspective it was both conceptually and aesthetically retro, yet simultaneously ultra-postmodern in its fragmentation.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to write reviews of his work, which for the most part focused on the complexity of his iconography and their references. Given his show of recent works at River House Arts in Toledo, Ohio, and his current exhibition at Geary Contemporary, I decided that rather than write another speculative or interpretative review, it would be interesting to interview him and let him speak to his intentions, his aesthetics, and his works’ implied contents.