Isaac Cordal: Cement Eclipses & Follow the Leaders

Street artist Isaac Cordal presents two of his installation at ExMuro Quebec.

Isaac Cordal (Pontevedra, 1974) works with sculpture, installations and photography in public and exhibition spaces. His work has been marked by the places where he has lived, such as London and Brussels. He currently lives in Bilbao.

One of his best-known works is the nomadic project called Cement Eclipses. It features ephemeral and permanent urban interventions made with small figurative sculptures. Through these, he reflects on modern society. From the start, he uses the same stereotypical character: a middle-aged, bald man in a grey suit.

The public space plays a leading role, as the chosen location is a fundamental part of his work. These semantic spaces blur scale and evoke the passage of time and our own decline. They address our imperfections using measured, ambiguous humor and irony —balancing on the edge of drama— creating uncertainty between laughter and tears.

Cement Eclipses

Cement Eclipses critically examines social behavior and highlights the devalued relationship with nature by focusing on the collateral effects of human evolution. The figures are strategically placed to evoke alternative perspectives, while the scenes focus on routine tasks of contemporary life.

Men and women are suspended and isolated in poses that can carry multiple meanings. These sympathetic figures are easy to relate to and to laugh with. They present fragments where nature, still present, shows encouraging signs of survival. The precarious statuettes, standing at the height of a passerby’s sole, symbolize the nomadic remnants of our society’s imperfect construction. These small sculptures reflect the demolition and reconstruction of everything around us. They draw attention to the absurdity of our existence.

Isaac Cordal shows sympathy for his little people, allowing you to empathize with their situations. You see their leisure time, waiting for buses, and even their tragic moments like accidental death, suicide, or family funerals. These sculptures appear in gutters, atop buildings, on bus shelters, and in many other unusual, unexpected places.

For the Quebec exhibition, Isaac Cordal created a trail of 45 installations integrated into the heritage of the Old Port, especially along rue Saint-Pierre. See the itinerary.

Follow the Leaders

Follow the Leaders denounces the excesses of capitalism, political inaction and the environmental crisis. Through miniature sculptures of men in suits and ties, frozen in a ruined urban setting, the work illustrates the powerlessness of elites in the face of impending collapse, highlighting bureaucratic paralysis, and collective apathy. The title, tinged with black humor, accentuates the criticism of a society where conformity leads to inaction.