Fifth Street Station - Slideshow
Failed Ideals by Jim Isermann
Project Description
Jim Isermann's Failed Ideals is composed of six stained-glass windows installed into the portholes of the station pylons. Each window design is based on architectural details, some lost and some surviving, found in the City of Long Beach: from Arts and Crafts bungalows to the Pike; from classic movie palaces to the lost signage of drive-in theaters; from fifties concrete block and linoleum patterns to 1960’s remodeled facades of much older buildings. The architectural references recall the lost optimism and failed ideals of their time.
Artist Statement
"I am interested in utopian solutions that blur the distinction between art and design through utilitarian application. For seven years I have hand-crafted a series of work: latch hook rugs, stained glass, hand-pieced fabric and hand-loomed weavings. These crafts, once a part of everyday life, have fallen into hobby shop dilution. The pathos of obsolete populist ideals are translated into handiwork. The handiwork returns these crafts to a fine art context and restores their lost ideals."
About the Artist
JIM ISERMANN was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He received a Master of Fine Arts from CalArts and his work has chronicled the conflation of post-war industrial design and fine art through popular culture. He believes in the beauty of utilitarian design and has explored several traditional handicraft techniques such as stained glass, hand-sewn patchwork and hand-loomed weaving. His work has evolved from didactic representations of the failure of modernism to the physical embodiment of pure design. Isermann received a prestigious Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2001. He shows his work in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Europe.
Display year: 1995 -
Locations: Fifth Street Station
