Cross Sections gathers Catherine Wagner’s work at the meeting point of photography and scientific imaging. Made between 1998 and 2001, the project uses magnetic resonance imaging and scanning electron microscopy to examine ordinary things in unfamiliar ways. Objects become patterns, sections, and structures whose appearance may be difficult to connect with everyday experience. The images ask what happens when instruments extend sight beyond its usual limits.

Wagner brings an artist’s attention to technologies associated with investigation and measurement. In the book’s reproduced spreads, pale forms stand against deep black fields; repeated circles, clustered shapes, and dense textures invite comparison across changes of scale. Images of laboratory apparatus place the means of looking alongside the resulting visual forms. The relation between an object and its representation becomes something to consider rather than a connection to take for granted.

Published by Twin Palms in 2001, the English-language hardcover contains 112 pages and 70 duotone plates in an approximately twelve-inch-square format. Essays by Cornelia Butler, Glen Helfand, and F. David Peat provide distinct approaches to the work. Peat’s discussion of science and aesthetics considers how close attention can reveal the particular character of things. The square pages accommodate both large individual forms and comparisons across a spread.

The book invites movement between recognition and uncertainty. A familiar object can become strange when its internal organization or magnified surface takes over the picture. Conversely, an unfamiliar image may acquire a strong visual coherence before the viewer knows what it represents. Wagner makes that interval productive: the reader can respond to rhythm, contrast, and texture while also questioning the instruments and conventions through which the subject becomes visible.