A new artist book by the Brazilian sculptor Juliana Cerqueira Leite gives an in-depth, to-scale view of the female anatomy. The wordless volume, A Potential Space—an anatomical term for a space that can occur between adjacent, but not attached, surface membranes— was made by laser-cutting thick pages with the outlines of a 3-D scan from a cast of the inside of a vagina (no word on whose). “As an object, A Potential Space formally mimics the mechanism of dissection in carrying this inner organ into the visual field through its bisection—the book opens, revealing its subject only through fragmentation, only ever offering a partial or conditional view,” a press statement for the book explains. The work, an edition of 75 with eight artist’s proofs and two display copies, will premiere next week at the New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1 (16-18 September). The fair will host a talk and panel discussion, The Book, the Woman and the Body Politic, next Friday, 16 September at 6pm, with Cerqueira Leite and Tatana Kellner, the artistic director of the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York.
