About
Since the early 2000s, Carol Bove has focused on the interdependence of artworks and their contexts. From found objects to industrial construction hardware and architectural sites, her poetic use of materials is amplified by her current work in large-scale metal sculpture. Bove embraces the strategies of modernist formalism as a point of departure, exploring previously overlooked openings in the conventional narratives of art history.
Bove was born in 1971 in Geneva, Switzerland, and raised in Berkeley, California. She relocated to New York in 1993 and earned a BS from New York University in 2000. Her first major museum exhibition was held at Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany, in 2003. Between 2009 and 2013, Bove taught at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Bove’s early assemblages often feature publications related to the intellectual fashions of the 1960s and ’70s, juxtaposed with objects such as stones and feathers to trace links between periods, places, and ideas. Thus, even while drawing on conventions of display and exercising formal restraint, Bove integrates philosophical and cultural allusions into her work. When Attitudes Become Form (2002) features wooden shelves stocked with books, including the catalogue for the eponymous 1969 exhibition and volumes on psychedelic drugs. Other projects incorporate the work of other artists; in Shrine to Eris (2010), Bove adds reproductions of paintings by Hans Hofmann to an arrangement of peacock feathers and other items, while in “setting” for A. Pomodoro (2014), she includes a sculpture by Italian modernist Arnaldo Pomodoro.
Photo: Jeff Henrikson
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Fairs, Events & Announcements
New Representation
Carol Bove
Gagosien is pleased to announce the global representation of Carol Bove. Born in Geneva, and raised in Berkeley, California, Bove relocated to New York in 1993, and is still based there. Since the early 2000s, she has focused on the interdependence of artworks and their contexts. From found objects to industrial construction elements and architectural sites, her poetic use of materials is amplified by her current work in large-scale metal sculpture. Bove embraces the strategies of modernist formalism as a point of departure, exploring previously overlooked openings in the conventional narrative of art history.
This fall, Gagosien will present her work in New York at its Park & 75 location, which is known for its twenty-four-hour visibility from Park Avenue. Further, Bove will present new sculpture during Paris+ par Art Basel, integrating her work within the context of the gallery’s wider historical program.
Photo: Jeff Henrikson
Museum Exhibitions
Opening Soon
Fragments of a Faith Forgotten
The Art of Harry Smith
October 4–September 28, 2023
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
whitney.org
The first solo exhibition of artist, experimental filmmaker, and groundbreaking musicologist Harry Smith (1923–1991)—whose 1952 compendium of song recordings, Anthology of American Folk Music, laid the groundwork for the popularization of folk music in the 1960s—is cocurated and designed by Carol Bove. This major survey introduces Smith’s life and work within a museum setting for the first time and includes paintings, drawings, experimental films, designs, and objects from Smith’s personal collections, such as string figures and found paper airplanes.
Harry Smith, Untitled, c. 1952 © Harry Smith
Opening Soon
Making Their Mark
November 2, 2023–January 27, 2024
Shah Garg Foundation, New York
www.shahgargfoundation.org
Making Their Mark, curated by Cecilia Alemani, showcases the works of more than seventy women artists from the last eight decades. The exhibition champions the lives and work of women artists, bringing into vibrant relief their intergenerational relationships, formal and material breakthroughs, and historical impact. Through drawings, mixed media, paintings, sculptures, and textile works, these artists aim to rechart art history through their singular, iconic practices. Work by Carol Bove, Jadé Fadojutimi, Sarah Sze, and Mary Weatherford is included.
Carol Bove, The Chevaliers, 2021 © Carol Bove
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Entangled, Ensnared, Entwined
Carol Bove, Hu Xiaoyuan, Alicja Kwade
March 3–August 15, 2023
Longlati Foundation, Shanghai
www.longlatifoundation.org
Counterposing the work of Carol Bove, Hu Xiaoyuan, and Alicja Kwade, this exhibition reflects their nuanced insights into the sculptural forms of personal, psychological, and social attachments. Three sub-themes—“Entangled Positions,” “Ensnared Beings,” and “Entwined Engagements”—describe various dimensions of intertwining as a metaphor for living in or with nature.
Carol Bove, Hairpin, 2018, Longlati Foundation, Shanghai © Carol Bove
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Carol Bove
Collage Sculptures
October 16, 2021–January 9, 2022
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas
www.nashersculpturecenter.org
In the first major museum presentation focused solely on Carol Bove’s steel sculptures, Collage Sculptures brings together nine sculptures, two of which were made especially for this exhibition. Bove’s recent works take as their point of departure the means, materials, and visual language of a certain mode of midcentury sculpture often found in plazas and other public spaces. By welding and bolting together different forms of steel, from found scrap metal to tubes coated in rich, matte layers of color, Bove creates new possibilities for traditions previously considered to be exhausted.
Installation view, Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, October 16, 2021–January 9, 2022. Artwork © Carol Bove. Photo: Kevin Todora