Book + Art: Artists' books from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture

Body + Politics

This collection of books challenges the conventional notion that gender and sex necessarily correspond.  Constrained, concealed, pushed up and pulled back, these books show how the body has been coerced into conforming to the taste of the times.

Click on each image and use the right/left arrows to see more views of the book.

A Revealing History of Women's Underwear (Upright)

A Revealing History of Women's Underwear (Upright)

A Revealing History of Women's Underwear

Cathering Michaelis. May Day Press, 2007.

Upright. This item includes illustrations depicting the evolution of women's undergarments.

Wrongly Bodied: Documenting the Transition from Female to Male (Cover)

Wrongly Bodied: Documenting the Transition from Female to Male (Cover)

Wrongly Bodied: Documenting the Transition from Female to Male

Clarissa Sligh. Leeway Foundation, 2009.

Cover. Wrongly Bodied tells the story of a white female's transition to a male body and the story of Ellen Craft, a 19th slave who escaped bondage by dressing as a man.

Wrongly Bodied, Two (t.p.)

Wrongly Bodied, Two (title page)

Wrongly Bodied, Two (Cover)

Wrongly Bodied, Two (Cover)

Wrongly Bodied Two

Clarissa Sligh. Women's Studio Workshop, 2004.

Cover. Continues the story Sligh began in the original Wrongly Bodied.

Conceal (Cover)

Conceal (Cover)

Conceal (Panel)

Conceal (Panel)

Conceal

Cynthia Thompson. Women's Studio Workshop, 2003.

Cover. Using photographic images of the female body, Conceal explores the themes of shame, denial, and sexuality.

Party Dress (Case)

Party Dress (Case)

Party Dress (Panel)

Party Dress (Panel)

Party Dress (1)

Party Dress (Inside 1)

Party Dress (2)

Party Dress (Inside 2)

Party Dress

Catherine Michaelis. May Day Press, 2004.

Constructed as an eight panel accordion fold, this book is dedicated to the artist's mother's skill at sewing.

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This (Cover)

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This (Open)

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This (Open)

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

Shana Agid. Rind Press, 2004.

Woodcut illustrations accompany the story of family history, national history, and the author's transgender identity.

Shame (View 1, full)

Shame (full)

Shame (View 2, top)

Shame (top)

Shame (View 3, middle)

Shame (middle)

Shame (View 4, bottom)

Shame (bottom)

Shame

Susan Leeb. 2005.

The artist created this work as an expression of the shame she felt at being forced to wear old-fashioned dresses made by her grandmother. Each page is a cut-out of an eighteenth century dress emblazoned with a naked female torso, with text from a poem by Goethe.

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