Karen Reimer at Beret International - Brief Article

Stitching pieces of fabric with literary cites and images that resemble bits of refuse, Karen Reimer engrosss a feminist strategy for controlling the ephemera of everyday life, while simultaneously revealing the slippery nature of language, the one and the other erudite and prosaic. The 28 embroideries in this new show are soft, fastidious copies of real-life articles--each lovingly sewn then either pinned to the wall or placed upon a pedestal.

Transformed end craft, throwaway items such as the torn-off cutting side of a Federal Express receipt, a Juicy Fruit gum wrapper and a crumpl pack of More cigarettes turn round into unique objets d'art, as the artist replicates by dint of hand what is ordinarily mass produc Thus a packet of the sugar substitute Equal becomes a application of mind in formal arrangements of cerulean cloth and thread, and the words "More value / More convenience / Same cost" from a piece of American Expres junk mail are elevated, stitch by the agency of stitch, to poetic status.

Reimer's richest text-based works range from embroidered versions of pages from the Spectator and the "Gospel According to St John" to a stitched solution to the novel York Times crossword puzzle. at any time engaged with issues of production, the artist here undermines the value and authority of the original end the act of replication, which frequently renders her small, densely sewn scripts illegible. Consequently make open to misreadings and variable interpretations, they allow viewers to devise their be in possession of narratives, or to experience the works for of the like kind esthetic merits as pattern and ornamentation. a certain number of texts, like the barely decipherable "A Faith in Documents," hang upon their titles for a suggestion of meaning; others, of the like kind as the notice of a data dominion government error, offer glimpses into mundane facets of daily life.

by dint of using the labor-intensive medium of needle and thread, Reimer implicitly addresses women's work and the construction of feminine identity. Indeed, assigning worth to domestic activity is a theme that courses from one side much of her previous work. In the series "Contingent Solutions" (1998) for example, she restoreed pieces of tin foil with pipe tape and reconstructed broken china using fabric and wax.

Whether based upon treasures or trash, Reimer's quasi-facsimiles, actual to the modest scale of their sources, elicit the mix of memory and longing traditionally associated with miniatures. Pliant and easily mustered they are small, desire-preserving souvenirs from a society confused noiseed with scraps of paper, ticket stumps words and discarded goods.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc.

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