Juliana Cerqueira Leite

Climb at sculpture in the city, june 2018- June 2019, Mitre square, london

Climb at sculpture in the city, june 2018- June 2019, Mitre square, london

Sculpture in the City is an annual outdoor sculpture festival in the City of London’s ‘Square Mile’. In its eighth year the 2018 edition of the festival includes sculptures by 18 artists: David Annesley, Marina Abramovic, Shaun C. Badham, Miroslaw Balka, Tracey Emin, Claire Jarrett, Juliana Cerqueira Leite, Gabriel Lester, Amanda Lwin, Sarah Lucas, Jean-Luc Mouléne, Michail Pirgelis, Thomas J Price, Richard Rome, Nancy Rubins, Sean Scully, Do Ho Suh, and Karen Tang.

Climb was made from the inside out. The sculpture is an obelisk made inside a tall wooden column filled with nearly three tons of wet clay. Starting at the base of this structure the artist physically dug her way upwards through the center of the material, leaving behind a vertical tunnel. The surface of the clay inside was marked by imprints of her knees, feet, elbows, fingers and hands as she worked her way up. Once the artist reached the top of this column of clay she cast the tunnel she’d made in a mixture of plaster and acrylic. The cast, which turned the negative space left by her actions into a shape, was then excavated out from underneath the remaining clay. Only then was the sculpture revealed for the first time, like a photograph developed from film.

More information at press for Sculpture in the City’s 8th edition can be found here.

Exhibition works