Jamie Isenstein

Jamie Isenstein is an American artist.

Work

Jamie Isenstein works in sculpture, drawing, and performance. In conversation with Friday Arts on the occasion of the 2025 exhibition Body / Body / Body, in which her work was shown alongside Fabienne Lasserre and Sophy Naess, Isenstein stated: "My work has always grappled with political questions, especially work that uses disembodied body parts. When I use my own body, or now other people’s—sometimes it's a hand or feet or a leg—there's this question of subject and object. Am I the subject or have I become an object? There are questions of power. Am I going to be the object and be the thing that power is acted upon, or am I making an object into a subject that has some sort of agency?"

Isenstein has received numerous reviews and mentions in the art press. Her work has been described by art critic Roberta Smith as "cryptic and light, with an undertow of sorrow." The critic David Velasco described her signature as "sculptures that use parts of her own living body as material".

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Home Theater, Lullin + Ferrari Gallery, Zurich, CH, 2023 Jamie Isenstein: Infinite Expansion of the Rubber Band Mansion, The Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, 2022 Spectacle, Gluck50, Milan, Italy, 2017 Head Space, Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, Flagler College, St. Augustine, FL, 2017 Jamie Isenstein: Infinite Invisible Soft-Shoe, special presentation in conjunction with Collected By Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY, 2016 Para Drama, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York City, NY, 2015 Jamie Isenstein: “ “ Visual Arts Center, University of Texas, Austin, TX, 2011 Hammer Projects: Jamie Isenstein, This Way to the Egress Armand Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, 2007 Acéphal Magical, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, NY, 2007

Group exhibitions

Body / Body / Body, Friday Arts, New York, NY 2025 Four Rooms: A Floating World, Lullin + Ferrari, Zurich, CH, 2022 Illusions Are Real, Manif d’Art, La Biennale de Québec, curated by Steven Matijcio, Québec City, Québec, Canada, 2022

Collections

Museum of Modern Art Whitney Museum of American Art Hammer Museum