CHICAGO,.-A synthesis of art and design comprised of a wavy network of vacuum-formed plastic tiles creates a major wall installation by the Los-Angeles based artist Jim Isermann. The untitled work on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, through July 30, 2006, combines the mass-production logic of industrial design and the dynamic aesthetic effect of abstract painting or minimalist sculpture. Isermann uses five types of concave, quadrilateral-based pyramids with slight differences in base shape to create an undulating flow of formal distortion and harmony.

Isermann’s work is an outpouring of his passion for “reducing complex problems to the most straight forward pragmatic or logical solutions.” Over the course of his twenty-five year career, he establishes himself internationally through sculptures and paintings that examine the increasingly unclear boundary between art and design. Spatially defined installations such as Untitled may be classified as both sculpture and as interior design. Other works, comprising wall hangings, hand-woven rugs, fabric-covered sculptural cubes, and vinyl patterned murals, similarly demonstrate Isermann’s sustained interest in the conflation of post-war industrial design and fine art in popular culture.

Untitled is a reconfiguration of a project Isermann created for the New York gallery Deitch Project in fall 2005. He exhibited in Fake Ecstasy with Me, a 1997 group exhibition at the MCA, and is represented in the MCA Collection with the work Flower Painting, 1986. Born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Isermann currently lives and works in Palm Springs, California. This project is curated by Pamela Alper Associate Curator, Dominic Molon.