Juliana Cerqueira Leite

R1, R2, R3, R4, 2017

R1, R2, R3 & R4,  were made during A four-week residency in the Venice. Using the gallery itself as a temporary studio space, Juliana Cerqueira Leite worked alone and intensely, to create sculptures that respond to the volumes and proportions of the exhibition room as well as the unique context of Venice. Using Stanislaw Lem’s science fiction novel Solaris, famously adapted to film by Andrei Tarkovskij, as a reference, the works in the exhibition play on notions of the returning past, the simulacrum and the formless. The sculptures relate, as does all of Cerqueira Leite’s work, directly to the human body, in particular the female body. This precise identification exists as part of a larger conceptual field, which engages with contemporary feminist theory, as well as the history of feminist art. However, Cerqueira Leite’s work places what might be understood by some as two discreet values – feminism and femininity – into question. 

R series: Things on Shelves

"Books, cups, pots, plates, glasses, medication, small sculptures, miniatures, perfumes, vases with plants, trinkets, bones, small boxed goods, canned foods, toys, jewelry boxes, cosmetics, binders, notebooks, folders and folded linens, not socks, or underwear, not cutlery, boxed dry produce, not pencils unless contained in a pencil holder, candles and candelabra, tins of loose tea, coffee in small foil-lined bags, cookies in tins or plastic packaging, eye glasses in or out of cases, chocolate bars, packing tape, not beads, not paper clips unless inside boxes or re-purposed tea cups, not long dresses, not suits, shoes best left off. Not umbrellas. Hats, gloves, and scarves are optional, albums with photographs, framed portraits of family or friends, folded towels, shampoo and conditioner, soap restrained by a soap dish or boxed and unused, displays supporting necklaces, earrings or bracelets, sunglasses used or unused, electronic devices. Olive oil in bottles, jars of fruit jam, boxes of sugar, sealed bags of flour, not eggs, not milk, not bodies unless refrigerated, canned cat food, wood polish in spray bottles, deodorant, lamps, souvenirs, rocks, telephones, small musical instruments, photographic equipment, chemical solutions in bottles, pills in boxes, sealed packets of pigment, boxed wood screws, not brooms, not brushes, seldom used kitchen appliances, dead insects, lengths of coiled rope, vases without plants."

Juliana Cerqueira Leite 2017

Exhibitions 

Solaris, Alma Zevi, 4th March -15th April, 2017, Venice, Italy