Karen Reimer, "Endless Set #17-29," 2007. Sewn fabric. 30 x 20 inches. Courtesy the artist and Monique Meloche.

The Graham Foundation Bookshop is pleased to host the launch of Endless,—the first major publication on the work of pioneer craft artist Karen Reimer. Published by Gallery 400 and WhiteWalls, the catalogue not only surveys this innovative artist’s work, but also rethinks the canonical relationship between architecture and craft.

Endless, includes important essays by leading cultural critic Lauren Berlant, architectural critic Penelope Dean, and art historian Judith Russi Kirshner, as well as an interview with the artist by Gallery 400 director Lorelei Stewart. These essays boldly theorize a new relationship of craft to labor and explore how this groundbreaking artist entwines craft, art, and contemporary issues.

Reimer will be signing copies of her new publication, which will be available for purchase in our bookshop. The event will also feature a Q&A with the artist moderated by Lorelei Stewart. Endless is supported by a Craft Research Fund grant from the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, Inc. and by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Karen Reimer produces work that expansively addresses the larger relationship of craft to modernist and postmodernist cultural aims. For Reimer, craft is a means to explore architectural concerns, minimalist issues, questions of labor, and connotations within the domestic or vernacular. She has had solo exhibitions at Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago; the Rochester Art Center, MN; the Riverside Arts Center, IL; Schopf Gallery, Chicago; and the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago. Her work has been included in group shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Contemporary Craft Museum, Portland, Oregon; and Wallspace Gallery, New York, among others. Reimer is the recipient of an Artadia Individual Artist grant and a Richard A. Driehaus Individual Artist award. Her work has been included in the publications By Hand: The Use of Craft in Contemporary Art (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010); The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production (MIT Press, 2007); and Contemporary Textiles (Black Dog Press). She is currently an instructor in Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Reimer completed a BA at Bethel College, North Newton, KS, and an MFA at the University of Chicago.