Isa Melsheimer

Isa Melsheimer (born September 19, 1968, in Neuss) is a German sculptor, object and installation artist, painter and university lecturer.

Life Isa Melsheimer grew up on a vineyard in Reil on the Moselle. From 1991 to 1997, she studied painting at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin (now Berlin University of the Arts) in the Georg Baselitz master class.

After a substitute semester in Björn Dahlem's class at the Bauhaus University Weimar and a guest professorship for experimental drawing at the Braunschweig University of Art, she has been Professor of Ceramics in the Fine Arts program at the Muthesisus Academy of Fine Arts in Kiel since the winter semester 2022.

Isa Melsheimer lives and works in Berlin.

Work Isa Melsheimer's artistic work engages with organically evolved and constructed living spaces. Her interest lies in the conditions that emerge in the process of designing and transforming these environments. She focuses both on the history of built structures, from individual architectural forms and urban fabrics to natural formations, and on the influence of human activity on ecological systems.

Melsheimer primarily works with ceramics but also uses materials such as concrete, glass, metal, wood, yarn, fabric, plants, and everyday objects. In addition to her sculptural works, she produces an ongoing series of gouaches.

A central aspect of her work is the creation of fragile, often surreal-looking dwellings and architectural fragments that appear as excerpts of a larger, not fully comprehensible whole. In these, Melsheimer explores how spaces come into being, how they change, and what cultural, social, and ecological meanings they carry.

Her often site-specific installations weave together subjective memories, symbols, and historical events into multi-layered spatial structures. In these, past and present, nature and architecture overlap.

Art historian and curator Verena Gamper describes Isa Melsheimer's engagement with the built environment in her ceramics as a multifaceted process. According to Gamper, the works “oscillate in their appearance between fragment and model, between the made and the grown, between the artificial and the natural-unified beneath glazes that recall efflorescences, oxidized stones, lichens, or layers of earth.”

In their materiality and formal language, the works open up a field of diverse associations, from (utopian) architectural models to animal constructions and organic structures. “In their hybrid appearance, between model-like experimental arrangements of human dwellings and the habitats of other living beings, between the man-made, the animal, and the grown, the ceramics suggest that this architectural process is situated in a world no longer shaped by human intervention.”

Projects

2014: THE BEE TREASURE. International Summer festival 2014, Kampnagel Hamburg, artistic direction and choreography: Barbara Schmidt-Rohr; installation/set/costumes: Isa Melsheimer; choreography: Frank Willens and Maria F. Scaroni; dramaturgy: Thomas Schaupp; music/sound: Richard von der Schulenburg 2011: EXPEDACTION: Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand. O32c Workshop, Berlin with Arno Brandlhuber and Christopher Roth 2010: gimme shelter. Premiere: 13.05.2010, Live Art Festivals 2010, Kampnagel Hamburg; choreography and performance: Frank Willens and Ulrike Bodammer with their son Elijas; installation: Isa Melsheimer; dramaturgy: Robert Steijn; lightning: Bruno Pocheron; idea and concept: Irmela Kastner and Barbara Schmidt-Rohriii; “Oceanfront Nights” with Arno Brandlhuber Art Basel/Miami Beach; Concrete Society, Lecture on ideological clash, architectural destruction and brutiful objects; Concrete Society with Arno Brandlhuber, Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Bibliothekswohnung; Exhibition project: Blickwechsel. Installation “Unloved Plants” in the Forstgarten/Museum Kurhaus Kleve 2009: The life of the shell. Within the project 31PLUS1 of Generali Deutschland Holding AG, Cologne

Awards and scholarships (selection)

2017: Fogo Island Arts Residency, Fogo Island, Canada 2015: Marianne Werefkin Prize, Berlin Woman Artists 1867 e. V. 2013: Residency scholarship, German Academy Rome Villa Massimo 2012: Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e. V., exhibition funding and residency grant, Goethe-Institut Lisbon, Portugal 2010: Foundation Kunstfonds Bonn project grant 2008: Scholarship of the Berlin Senate for Istanbul and Art Prize of the City of Nordhorn 2007: Residency Villa Aurora, Los Angeles 2005: Scholarship The Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas and Scholarship Civitella Raniere Foundation, Umbertide, Italy 2002: Scholarship Stiftung Kulturfonds, Berlin and Glenfiddich Award for Young Art 2001: Scholarship Schloss Plüschow, Mecklenburg 1999: Scholarship Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral, Bad Ems

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo

2025: Modeling the World, Aranya Art Center, Aranya, China 2024: All the Metaphors Come True (with Harald Klingelhöller), Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, 798 Art Zone, Peking, China 2023: If We Dissovle Now / We Are More Than We Ever Were, Galería Elba Benítez, Madrid 2023: The Window, Esther Schipper, Seoul, South Korea 2023: Continual Process of Improvement, Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Wien, Austria 2022: Concrete Bodies are Finite, Centre international d'art et du paysage Île de Vassivière 2021: Compost, MAMAC | Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain 2020: Der unerfreuliche Zustand der Textur. KINDL – Center for contemporary Art, Berlin 2018: Rain, Le 19 Crac, Montbéliard; The Year of the Whale. Fogo Island Arts; Meatboliten. Kunstverein Heppenheim, Heppenheim; Psychotropische Landschaften. Städtische Galerie Delemenhorst, Delmenhorst 2017: Der tote Palast zitterte – zitterte! Mies van der Rohe Haus Berlin 2015: We live in townscape and, after a trek, we shop in Futurism. Art3, Valence; Kontrastbedürfnis. Ernst-Barlach-Haus, Hamburg; Examinations of the Origins. Quartz Studio, Turin 2014: Synapsen. Ikob – Museum for contemporary art, Eupen Belgium 2012: Vermilion Sands and Other Stories from the Neon West. Santa Monica Museum of Art, USA 2010: Mittelland. Kunsthaus Langenthal, Swiss; Carré d’art, N’és, France 2008: Fremdenzimmer. Foundation Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen 2007: Mönchehaus Museum Goslar 2005: The Chinati Foundation, Marfa Texas 2004: Corridors. Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht 2003: Kunstverein Arnsberg 1999: Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt am Main

Group

2025: Schöner Wohnen – Architekturvisionen von 1900 bis heute, Kunsthalle Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany 2025: Sound of the Earth. Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Kunstmuseum / Kunsthalle Appenzell, Switzerland 2025: IN/SU/LA, Matèria, Rome 2025: Radio Luxembourg: Echoes across borders. New Collection Display, Mudam Luxemburg, Luxemburg 2025: States of Uncertain Domesticities, Haus Kunst Mitte, Berlin & House of Arts, Brno, Czech Republic 2025: GLÄSERN, Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin, Germany 2025: Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans: The aesthetics of contingency, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, France 2025: Only Lovers Left Alive, Behncke Gallery, Klenze Palais am Odeonsplatz München, Germany 2024: Rewriting Territories, Palm Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan 2024: Modell und Wirklichkeit, Die Möglichkeit einer Insel, Berlin, Germany 2024: Regenerative Futures, Fondation Thalie, Brüssel, Belgium 2024: Group Show, Galerie Esther Schipper, Domaine du Muy, France 2024: Maison Bernard, Genius Loci, Théoule-sur-Mer, Cannes, France 2024: stay moving, Galerie Nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Wien, Austria 2024: Volume Invisible, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, France 2023: Per-Form, BROWNIE Project Gallery, Shanghai 2023: Fragment of an infinite discourse. Lenbachhaus, Munich; Pride and Prejudice. University Gallery of the Angewandte in Heiligenkreuzerhof Vienna; High Spirits. Monopol Berlin, Berlin 2022: It is the scenery that moves. Brotéria, Lisbon; Delivery Hero. O P E N Berlin, Isa Melsheimer & Oliver Mark; Rohkunstbau XXVII Altdöbern Castle; Venican stars. Art Museum Chur, Switzerland; Blanc de Blancs. Villa Schöningen, Potsdam 2021: I never wanted to be a constructivist! Kunstverein Pforzheimvi; 6 of 60 | Black + White. Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum, Berlin; FRagile. Municipal Museums Heilbronn / Kunsthalle Vogelmann, Heilbronn; Rituals of the present. Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg; Anything Goes? Berlin Architectures of the 1980s, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 2020: Glass and concrete. Manifestations of the impossible. MARTa Herford; On everyone’s lips. Wolfsburg Art Museum; My father, my neighbors, my friends and their friends. Haubrok foundation FAHRBEREITSCHAFT, Berlin; Everything in Wonderland. Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden 2019: Made in Marl. Sculpture Museum Glaskasten Marl 2018: Room XVII. Werkhalle wiesenburg, Berlin; Frozen to Pieces. Gussglashalle, Berlin; Art Biesenthal. Biesenthal; Belonging to a Place. Gallery at the Embassy of Canada, Washington, USA; Women House. National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, USA 2017: Stories of Nature. Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation (mumok), Vienna; Urban Lights Ruhr. Urban Space Marl and Sculpture Museum Glaskasten Marl; Between Spaces. Center for Art and Public Space, Biesdorf Palace, Berlin 2016: Ready for the stage/1st act. Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck Foundation, Rolandseck; Concrete. Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Microscopie du banc. Mirco Onde, Center d’art de L’Onde, Wélizy-Villacoublay; France 2015: the difficult space. kunsthaus muerz, Mürzzuschlag, Austria; Parc de Sculptures Contemoraines. Domaine Du Muy, Le Muy, France; Harmony and upheaval reflections of chines landscapes. Marta Herford; variations LE CORBUSIER. Chateâu de Carros, Carros France; Tapisserie? De Picasso à Messager. Musée des Beaux-Arts; Angers France; (im)possible! Artist as architects. Mara Herford; Hunters & collectors in contemporary art. Villa Merkel, Esslingen 2014: Hunters & collectors in art. Morsbroich Museum, Leverkusen; What models can do. Museum for Contemporary Art, Siegen; Rapunzel & Co. Of towers and people in art. Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck Foundation; Contradictory Contours / Spaces and Interspaces. Märkisches Museum Witten; Fata morgana. Ikob – Museum of Contemporary Art, Eupen Belgium 2013: Power. Delusion. Vision. The tower and urban giants in sculpture. Municipal Museum, Heilbronn; Schauplatz Stadt. Mülheim an der Ruhr; HANDARBEIT Material and symbolism. Museum Kunst der Westküste, Alkersum/Föhr 2012: Garden of Eden. Palais de Tokyo, Paris; 30 artists / 30 rooms. Neues Museum Nürnberg 2011: Mondes inventés, Mondes habités. Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Mudam), Luxembourg; Interior Worlds. Museum Kunst der Westküste, Alkersum/Föhr; Pamphile Show #3. Falckenberg Collection Hamburg; Capitain Pamphile. Deichtorhallen, Hamburg 2010: 15 years Villa Aurora – Transatlantic Impulses. Academy of Arts, Berlin; (re)designing nature. Künstlerhaus, Vienna; Solde migratoire. Biennale de Belleville, Paris; FischGrätenMelkStand. Temporary Kunsthalle Berlin 2009: Cologne Sculpture 5. Sculpture Park Cologne; New light at the lake. Maschsee, Hannover; Le Travail de Rivière. Center d’art contemporian d’Ivry-le Crédac, Ivry-sur- Seine 2008: On Produceability. Alti Aylik, Istanbul, Turkey; Lizabaeth Oliveria L.A., Los Angeles 2007: M for M. Time Festival, S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent 2006: Objects. Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany; Asterism, Artists Living in Berlin. Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City 2005: Light art from artificial light. ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe 2004: The built, the unbuilt, and the unbuildable. Overgaden, Copenhagen 2003: un-built cities. Bonn Art Association; Small talk- Performative Installation #2. Lily van der Stokker, museum Ludwig, Cologne 2001: new Heimat. Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main

Collections (selection) Works by Isa Melsheimer are held in the following public collections:

Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Rolandseck Bonnefantenmusuem, Maastricht Berlinische galerie, Museum of Modern Art, berlin Carré d’art – Musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes, France CNAP Center national des arts plastiques, France Collezione la Gaia, Busca, Italy European Patent Office, Munich Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres, Spain Institut d’art contemporian de Villeurbanne, France Künstlerhaus Schloß Balmoral, Rhineland-Palatinate Foundation, Bad Ems Mudam, Luxembourg Museum Ludwig, Cologne Parc de Sculptures Contemporaines, Domaine Du Muy, Le Muy, France Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt Falckenberg Collection, Hamburg Philara Collections, Düsseldorf Collection of Contemporary Art of the Federal Republic of Germany S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Musum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium

Publications (selection) Annett Reckert (Hrsg.): Isa Melsheimer – Psychotropische Landschaften. Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst, Delmenhorst 2018, ISBN 978-3-944683-24-9. Mies van der Rohe haus (Hrsg.): Isa Melsheimer – der tote Palast zitterte – zitterte! form + zweck, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-947045-05-1. Karsten Müller (Hrsg.): Isa Melsheimer – Kontrastbedürfnis. Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Wien 2015, ISBN 978-3-903004-50-4. Kunsthaus Langenthal (Hrsg.): Isa Melsheimer, Mittelland. Langenthal 2010, ISBN 978-3-905817-26-3. Städtische Galerie Nordhorn (Hrsg.): Isa Melsheimer – Kunstpreis der Stadt Nordhorn 2008. Städtische Galerie, Nordhorn 2009, ISBN 978-3-922303-65-7. Klaus Gallwitz (Hrsg.): Isa Melsheimer – Fremdenzimmer. Arp-Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, 2008, ISBN 978-3-937572-92-5.