JIM ISERMANN

"In this exhibition, through a blend of craft techniques and references to modernist interior design in what the art critic Christopher Knight has called 'radical domesticity,' Jim Isermann takes up the problematics of fitting in, of feeling at home at a granular level.”

“The legacy of Bauhaus modernism—its doubled transition from craft to industrial production, its radical reduction of form, its utopian idealism—are part of Jim Isermann’s inheritance. So, too, are the trails of postwar American art practices: hard-edge abstraction and minimalist sculpture, pop reproduction and kitsch design. All of these aesthetic references, inflected with a distinct California sensibility, have been filtered through Jim Isermann’s canny eye. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of art history, design, and craft, Isermann has for the last four decades torqued the overserious—might we say staid?—maxims of art historical movements, giving even its queerer formulations, like Warhol’s flower paintings, a fresh perspective.”

Jim Isermann (b. 1955, Kenosha, WI) received his Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Isermann’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Camden Arts Center, London, United Kingdom; Corvi-Mora, London, United Kingdom; Deitch Projects, New York, NY; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA; Institute of Visual Arts, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI; Le Magasin - Centre d’art Contemporain, Grenoble, France; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL; Palm Springs Art Museum, Architecture and Design Center, Palm Springs, CA; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Praz-Delavallade, Los Angeles, CA; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; and the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC, among others.

He has been included in group exhibitions at numerous international institutions including the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; The Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, PA; FRAC Poitou-Charentes, Angoulême, France; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland; Kunstverein München, Munich, Germany; Le Magasin - Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Grenoble, France; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art in Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Royal Academy of Art, London, United Kingdom; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY.

His work may be found in the collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; FRAC Poitou-Charentes, Angoulême, France; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Menil Collection, Houston, TX; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; the Worcester Museum of Art, Worcester, MA, and elsewhere.

The artist lives and works in Palm Springs, CA.