Barrage | Bliss

Barrage | Bliss

Jessica Stockholder

Jim Isermann

March 9^th through April 28th, 2023

Leo Koenig Inc. is delighted to present an exhibition of works by Jessica Stockholder and Jim Isermann entitled Barrage|Bliss.  Volleying  back and forth in a tête-à-tête, the two artists present a cocophany of color and pattern, chaos and precision, each arriving at a joyful exuberance through differing methods.

Jessica Stockholder is known for her sculptures that include household items and consumer products, weighing their capacity to appear as a colorful domestic familiar, with the cataclysmic threat presented by their consumption and waste. Stockholder’s creations identify more like three dimensional pictures in space, interacting and testing the boundaries that they occupy. At the heart of her works we marvel at the space created by the diffuse objects incorporated into the room. But it is her distinct and uncanny use of color: brash, unapologetically joyful; that helps the imagination on a momentary journey, one that specifically addresses  an interweaving of how the artist sees things, how other people have seen things before her,  and how people see the work after it is made. Forming a connection to the past, present and future through her assemblage (her chosen language), the viewer sometimes can be forgiven for momentarily being caught off guard.

In Jim Issermann’s practice, pattern color, geometry and repetition are integral generators of his work in all mediums. Pulling inspiration from varied sources from Op and Pop art to Sister Corita Kent, to modern architecture, and interior décor, Isermann  redefines the outward guise of logic and precision by repeating the apparition of home. Christopher Knight argued in his text for the Monograph published by Radius Books that Isermann’s work “rooted in a radical commitment to Domesticity-the private shelter and refuge from hostility provided by the home.” The exhibition features works that affix to the wall and act as a dimensional wall paper as well as examples of the patterned variations that expose his interest in “total design” or gesanmtkunstwerk while also projecting a joy that is nearly intimidating.[1]

Jessica Stockholder was born in 1959 in Seattle, Washington and currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. She has exhibited widely in museums and galleries internationally. Her work is represented in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the Whitney Museum of Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; MoCA LA; SF MoMA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The British Museum, London; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Stockholder had her third solo exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, The Guests All Crowded Into the Dining Room, in the fall of 2016. Recent solo museum exhibitions include Stuff Matters at the Centraal Museum, Utrecht and Relational Aesthetics at The Contemporary Austin, Austin in 2019.

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.

Leo Koenig Inc. would like to thank Miles McEnery Gallery for their assistance with this exhibition.

Gallery Hours are Tues.-Fri.11-6.  Please contact the gallery for more information or email us at info@leokoenig.com

[1] Jonathan Taylor, Palm Springs Art Museum video re:Jim Isermann’s work Jan.  2020