Isaac Cordal | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1974 (age 49–50) Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Alma mater | University of Vigo Camberwell College of Arts |
| Style | Graffiti, sculptor |
Isaac Cordal (born 1974) is a Spanish Galician artist whose work involves sculpture and photography in the urban environment. He lives in Brussels and in Galicia.
Cordal was born in 1974 in Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain. [1] He studied Sculpture at the University of Fine Arts Pontevedra and then studied for five years at the School of Canteiros Pontevedra, a school dedicated to the conservation of stone crafts. He also trained at Camberwell College of Arts in London. [2] Cordal was a founding member of Alg-a.org, a digital art community based in Galicia. He was part of the artistic collective Ludd34560 and Sr. Pause. He was also an active member of the death metal scene in Spain, publishing the fanzine Exorcism and playing guitar in the band Dismal (1992–1998).
Cement Eclipses is one of Coral's best known projects consisting of small cement sculptures photographed in am urban space. [3] His figures can be found pasted on top of bus shelters, walls, cornices. The small size of his works (approximately {{convert|15|cm)) means it is necessary to pay much attention to find them. The sculptures serve for the artist as a metaphor to reflect on politics, bureaucracy and power. [4] They are presented in various absurd situations in urban space.
His work can be seen both in galleries and urban space. Small nomadic sculptures have been seen in cities like Brussels, London, Berlin, Zagreb, Łódź, Nantes, San Jose, Barcelona, Vienna, Malmo, Paris, Milan and Bogotá. His work is a critical reflection on the idea of progress, human misery, climate change and the gradual devaluation of human existence, among others topics. Small sculptures represent primarily a social stereotypes, apparently next to businessmen dressed in bright pink lama onesie and wolf slippers, briefcases, timeless beings, as the grey men of Momo by Michael Ende.[ citation needed ]
This was a massive installation presented in 2013 during the summer cultural event Le voyage à Nantes, located in Plaza du Boffay, one of the most central squares of Nantes. The measurement of the installation was of approximately 20 m x 20 m and it was composed by some 2000 figures and buildings of cement on scale semi destroyed representing a city in ruins. [5]
In a 2012 interview with Agenda Magazine, Cordal explained:
Our gaze is so strongly focused on beautiful, large things, whereas the city also contains zones that have the potential to be beautiful, or that were really beautiful in the past, which we overlook. I find it really interesting to go looking for those very places and via small-scale interventions to develop a different way of looking at our behaviour as a social mass. [6]
In various projects Cordal has shown interest in topics related to climate change. During the triennal Beaufort04, [7] he presented a series of sculptures of individuals on the top of poles wearing lifebuoys and 'waiting' for the climate change. An ironic proposal to reflect on our ineffectiveness with the degradation of the planet. During Le Voyage à Nantes, in the summer of 2013, he presented an installation of floating life-size sculptures in the moat of the castle of the Dukes of Brittany, with businessmen represented cast adrift.
This image is a reproduction of the sculpture installation The Electoral Campaign performed by Cordal in Berlin in 2011. It became popular on the Internet under the title Politicians Discussing Global Warming, although it was actually part of his series called Follow the Leaders.
Sculptures are made with metal grille with the intention of projecting shadows. One of his best-known projects is Cement Bleak, an urban installation held in London in 2009 with strainers modelled in the shapes of faces which became visible with public lightning at night when projecting their shadows on the paving. [8]
Pontevedra is a city in the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. It is the capital of both the Comarca and Province of Pontevedra, and the capital of the Rías Baixas. It is also the capital of its own municipality which is often considered an extension of the actual city.
Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically accessible to the public; it is installed in public space in both outdoor and indoor settings. Public art seeks to embody public or universal concepts rather than commercial, partisan, or personal concepts or interests. Notably, public art is also the direct or indirect product of a public process of creation, procurement, and/or maintenance.
Daniel Buren is a French conceptual artist, painter, and sculptor. He has won numerous awards including the Golden Lion for best pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1986), the International Award for best artist in Stuttgart (1991) and the prestigious Premium Imperiale for painting in Tokyo in 2007. He has created several world-famous installations, including "Les Deux Plateaux"(1985) in the Cour d'honneur of the Palais-Royal, and the Observatory of the Light in Fondation Louis Vuitton. He is one of the most active and recognised artists on the international scene, and his work has been welcomed by the most important institutions and sites around the world.
Jan De Cock is a contemporary Belgian visual artist. From the start of his career, his art has revolved around production and the ways in which an artist relates to the broad culturally-injected concept of Modernism. In 2003 Jan De Cock entered the competition Prix de la Jeune Peinture Belge. He is, after Luc Tuymans, only the second Belgian artist to have had a solo exposition at Tate Modern and the first living Belgian artist to have an exhibition at MoMA, which opened on 23 January 2008. Much of his work draws on visual and formal comparisons between early-20th century abstract art movements and contemporary design and mass production. During the first decade of his career the artist worked on the intersection of sculpture and architecture and he succeeded in extending the underlying functionalist consequences of the Russian Modernist artist El Lissitzky‘s Proun Room, thus completing a missing link within the modernist program yet to be completed in late twentieth century modernist art.
Mark Jenkins is an American artist who makes sculptural street installations. Jenkins' practice of street art is to use the "street as a stage" where his sculptures interact with the surrounding environment including passersby who unknowingly become actors. His installations often draw the attention of the police. His work has been described as whimsical, macabre, shocking and situationist. Jenkins cites Juan Muñoz as his initial inspiration.
The Nantes Planetarium is a public planetarium that opened on 18 June 1981. It operates as an auditorium that presents astronomy shows for all audiences.
Erik Sommer is an American contemporary artist and curator based in New York City. Best known for his weathered paintings and cement installations, his work is often compared to abandoned buildings, eroding stone or forgotten structures. The layers of his paintings peel off the supports, while his cement installations recreate scenes that feel to have been recently abandoned.
Tatzu Nishi is a Japanese site specific installation artist. He has created and exhibited works under the pseudonyms Tatzu Oozu, Tatsurou Bashi, Taturo Atzu, and Amabouz Taturo.
Covo Island, better known as the Island of Sculptures or Illa das Esculturas in Galician, is a park and island located near the mouth of the Lérez River, in Pontevedra, Spain. It has an area of 70,000 m2 (750,000 sq ft) where twelve granite sculptures by international artists are displayed. It is the largest and most important open-air permanent exhibition in Galicia, and one of the most important in Spain.
The Alameda del arquitecto Sesmero, popularly known as la Alameda by the Pontevedrians, is an urban park located in the city centre of Pontevedra in Spain. It is the largest urban green space in the centre of Pontevedra city, together with the Palm Trees Park. The Alameda is located to the west of the old town, close to the old fishermen's quarter of A Moureira.
The Pontevedra Museum is a museum in the Galician city of Pontevedra in Spain. It was founded by the Provincial Deputation of Pontevedra on 30 December 1927 and has six buildings for its exhibitions. It has permanent and temporary exhibition rooms. The museum's collections are multidisciplinary, classified into rooms for painting, sculpture, archaeology, decorative arts, engraving and ethnography.
The Monument to the Tertulia, known as the Literary Circle in Modern Coffee, is a sculptural group created by the Spanish sculptor César Lombera, in Pontevedra (Spain). It is located in Saint Joseph's Square in front of the Café Moderno and the central building of the former Provincial Savings Bank of Pontevedra and was inaugurated on 13 January 2006.
The Post and Telecommunications Palace of Pontevedra is a building between Oliva and García Camba streets, in the heart of the commercial and financial centre of Pontevedra, Spain. Since its construction, it has been the main headquarters of Correos in the city and in the province of Pontevedra. In front of its main façade there is an olive tree which gave its name to the Olive Street.
The walls of Pontevedra were a fortification of the city of Pontevedra (Spain), which disappeared for the most part towards the end of the 19th century, although some remains are still visible, the most important being the crenellated section in Arzobispo Malvar Street. This complete section, approximately 40 metres long, can be accessed from the gardens of the two buildings on the west side of Santa María Avenue.
Dorna is a sculpture created by the Spanish artist Xaime Quesada, located in Pontevedra (Spain). It is also known as Tribute to the pilgrimage way to Santiago de Compostela and is currently in Gorgullón Street on the Portuguese Way opposite the Vialia shopping centre.
The paseo marítimo of Pontevedra is a pedestrian way along the seafront facing the ria of Pontevedra, in Pontevedra, Spain. This coastal public space is built in the urban and semi-urban area of the city and defines its encounter with the sea and the Lérez river.
The Plaza de la Peregrina is an 18th-century square located in the city centre of Pontevedra (Spain), on the edge of the historic centre.
The Castelao building is a modern architectural building from the beginning of the 21st century located on the corner of Padre Amoedo Carballo and Sierra Street in Pontevedra, Spain, on the edge of the historic centre. It belongs to the Pontevedra Museum.
The former Saint Ferdinand Barracks in Pontevedra, is a large neoclassical building from the beginning of the 20th century located in the centre of Pontevedra (Spain), opposite the Doctor Marescot Gardens and very close to the Alameda de Pontevedra.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
