July Issue 1999
Isermann at Weatherspoon Gallery
The exhibition, Fifteen: Jim Isermann, will be on view in the Weatherspoon Art Gallery at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, through Aug. 8 in Gallery 7. The exhibition surveys the work of an important Los Angeles-based artist whose works have been at the forefront of art's cross-fertilization with design.
Isermann's work should be of particular interest to audiences in this region with its history and long association with the textile and furniture industries, said Nancy Doll, director of the Weatherspoon. Utilizing techniques and materials often associated with interior design and furnishings, Isermann's work addresses the intersection of fine art and post-war industrial design through popular culture, she said.
The artist employs stained glass, rug hooking, patchwork and hand-tufting to create distinct environments which are reminiscent of suburban living rooms of the 1950s. Described by critics as being both beautiful and utilitarian, Isermann's objects defy categorization, challenging the viewer's ability to separate craft from fine art, high art from low, and art from life.
David Pagel, exhibition curator, writes in the accompanying catalogue: "All of Isermann's works aim to improve the world in which people actually live - one satisfied customer at a time. By stimulating the senses, and by beautifying their surroundings, these user-friendly pieces make a place for themselves in a world otherwise overrun by mass-produced artifacts that lack the material quality, structural logic and visual flair of Isermann's sensible art, whose trademark has become just such supposedly old-fashioned attributes."
"Neither an attack on mass-production, nor an idealized critique of consumerism, his earnest works forgo such stand-apart elitism in favor of throwing their lot in with the down-to-earth stuff of everyday life, where populist pleasures are in no way opposed to highly refined designs."
Exhibition-related activities include a lecture by Lucinda Kaukas, a faculty member in the UNCG Department of Housing and interior Design. She will provide a contextual framework for Isermann's work in a talk titled Cross-Dressing: Interior Decoration as Art in the Work of Jim Isermann on July 21, at 5:30pm. A free children's art program in which children will explore Isermann's highly patterned work and create their own is planned for July 17, at 2pm.
A color-illustrated catalogue with essays by curator David Pagel and art critic Michael Darling accompanies Fifteen: Jim Isermann and includes a biography of the artist and full checklist of included works. The catalogue will be available for purchase in The Inside Corner museum shop.
Fifteen: Jim Isermann was organized for the Institute of Visual Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee by David Pagel, adjunct curator. The project has been funded by the Institute of Visual Arts Major Exhibition Fund; catalog funding has come from Robert and Mary Looker, Carpinteria, CA, and the Norton Family Foundation, Santa Monica, CA.
Other exhibitions being offered include Collection Highlights and Henri Matisse: Prints and Bronzes from the Cone Collection.
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