Jim Isermann explores modernism’s exhausted modes of expression—especially hard edge abstraction. For over thirty years, employing installation, sculpture, and painting, Jim Isermann perseveres in conflating camp strategies with the tenets of modernism into works that often depend on a rigorous system of mathematical codes. The lightness of Jim Isermann’s drawings on graph paper, whose delicacy is emphasized by their hanging on wall magnets, is very singular of the artist's practice. While each work hints at an inexhaustible list of iterations, their agency comes from the failure/near impossibility to hand-paint the sublime represented by mathematical codes and geometry. Says the artist of this work, "In 1987 Ilene Seagalove and I collaborated on the concept for Futura, a video installation. Seagalove directed the video and I designed the viewing room. Our starting point was specifically Disneyland’s now defunct Rocket to the Moon attraction, and more generally the melancholy engendered from not getting the future we were promised. Nine chairs were configured on a tri level platform in a heptagon shaped room that also included a custom TV console. Seven of the nine heptagon shaped paintings were hung on the walls, one painting was imbedded in the floor and one mounted on the gallery ceiling to replicate the Rocket ship’s viewing screens. Although the palette was limited to 7 colors, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, turquoise and green, each panting was color keyed to match a chair for a purposed life following the exhibition."

Courtesy of Praz-Delavallade