Jim Isermann

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The domestic heart of Isermann’s design-oriented paintings, sculptures, and installations beats in ways not always immediately evident but nonetheless essential to the art’s success. Sometimes it sneaks up when least expected.

– Christopher Knight


A comprehensive monograph spanning the forty-year career of Palm Springs–based, queer artist Jim Isermann, this title shows the artist’s first twenty years of extensive, chronological research of postwar art and design filtered through popular culture and consumerism, followed by twenty years of site-specific public projects and a studio practice of labor-intensive painting, sculpture, and the occasional product design project.

In 1980, there were no guidebooks to California design—or what we now call “Mid-Century Modern.” Isermann constructed his own timeline, object by object, from thrift stores, flea markets and swap meets, making bodies of work that included latch hook rugs paired with painting, stained glass window panels, and handsewn fabric wall hangings. By 1999, the artist had his first computer, and so began the second twenty years of his career, with complex digitally designed patterns that found their form in commercially manufactured modules. Isermann continues to be inspired by the unpredictable, serendipitous moments that breathe life into his work.

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The domestic heart of Isermann’s design-oriented paintings, sculptures, and installations beats in ways not always immediately evident but nonetheless essential to the art’s success. Sometimes it sneaks up when least expected.

– Christopher Knight


A comprehensive monograph spanning the forty-year career of Palm Springs–based, queer artist Jim Isermann, this title shows the artist’s first twenty years of extensive, chronological research of postwar art and design filtered through popular culture and consumerism, followed by twenty years of site-specific public projects and a studio practice of labor-intensive painting, sculpture, and the occasional product design project.

In 1980, there were no guidebooks to California design—or what we now call “Mid-Century Modern.” Isermann constructed his own timeline, object by object, from thrift stores, flea markets and swap meets, making bodies of work that included latch hook rugs paired with painting, stained glass window panels, and handsewn fabric wall hangings. By 1999, the artist had his first computer, and so began the second twenty years of his career, with complex digitally designed patterns that found their form in commercially manufactured modules. Isermann continues to be inspired by the unpredictable, serendipitous moments that breathe life into his work.

 

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  • Artwork by Jim Isermann
    Interview by John Burtle
    Essay by Christopher Knight

    Hardcover
    8.75 x 12 inches
    320 pages / 140 images

    Trade ISBN (all cover colors): 9781942185819
    Signed ISBN (Pink): 9781955161961
    Signed ISBN (Blue): 9781955161978
    Signed ISBN (Yellow): 9781955161985

  • 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 National 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.

    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.