Founded in 2020, ISOLARII revives an extinct literary genre—the Renaissance "island book," or isolario—to map the world's most defiant and unruly intellects. ISOLARII are tiny, the size of a pack of cigarettes, but potent, maintaining the ethos that the most expansive ideas can be held in the hand. Authored by figures who interrogate the shape of the avant-garde, what it is, and what it could become, these volumes offer readers fully formed, high voltage ideas that can be finished during a commute yet felt for weeks.
ISOLARII have now traveled to dozens of countries, establishing the imprint as a trusted signifier for cultural change. ISOLARII have become somewhat talismanic for a new generation, referred to in
Artforum as "objects that you pick up and feel almost anxious letting go of."
ISOLARII is jointly running a publishing program with
Hela Press.
