Carol Bove
Nake, 2021
Stainless steel and urethane paint
14 1/2 x 29 1/2 x 20 inches
36.8 x 74.9 x 50.8 cm
€120,000
Unframed
Blurb
Known for works that incorporate found and constructed elements with a unique formal, technical, and conceptual inventiveness, Carol Bove (b. 1971) stands as one of the foremost contemporary artists working today; her work has consistently challenged and expanded the possibilities of formal abstraction. As Johanna Burton notes, "The artist mines the expressive potential of materials and encourages different narrative events to emerge… Her works carry historical references and the history of the material themselves, yet her output is arrestingly singular."1
The present work is an example from Bove's ongoing series of "collage sculptures," compositions of various types of steel, begun in 2016. These works are characterized by square steel tubing that has been crushed and manipulated, painted in vibrant color, and variously combined with found pieces of scrap metal and, often, a smooth, highly polished steel disk. Playing with surface texture and pushing the limits of steel's physicality, this work continues her exploration of form and process, including folding and crushing steel into more complex compositions and rendering the material with an almost fabric- or clay-like, supple finish.
The contorted stainless steel of Nake is painted in monochrome violet-mauve, with a polished circular disk that rests upon the crushed, torqued form. The intricate folds and turns of steel of this work operate in tension with its perceived lightness, thereby exemplifying what Bove imagines as "a mirror effect on perception, where the material's plasticity acts on the imagination. What we know about the material is contradicted, so maybe our grip on reality should be a little lighter, too, enabling us to see what is in front of us rather than what we think we see."2
1Johanna Burton, introduction to "Dimensions: Carol Bove in Conversation with Johanna Burton," in Carol Bove: Ten Hours. Exh. cat. (New York: David Zwirner Books, 2019), p. 41.
2Carol Bove, in ibid., p. 42.
The present work is an example from Bove's ongoing series of "collage sculptures," compositions of various types of steel, begun in 2016. These works are characterized by square steel tubing that has been crushed and manipulated, painted in vibrant color, and variously combined with found pieces of scrap metal and, often, a smooth, highly polished steel disk. Playing with surface texture and pushing the limits of steel's physicality, this work continues her exploration of form and process, including folding and crushing steel into more complex compositions and rendering the material with an almost fabric- or clay-like, supple finish.
The contorted stainless steel of Nake is painted in monochrome violet-mauve, with a polished circular disk that rests upon the crushed, torqued form. The intricate folds and turns of steel of this work operate in tension with its perceived lightness, thereby exemplifying what Bove imagines as "a mirror effect on perception, where the material's plasticity acts on the imagination. What we know about the material is contradicted, so maybe our grip on reality should be a little lighter, too, enabling us to see what is in front of us rather than what we think we see."2
1Johanna Burton, introduction to "Dimensions: Carol Bove in Conversation with Johanna Burton," in Carol Bove: Ten Hours. Exh. cat. (New York: David Zwirner Books, 2019), p. 41.
2Carol Bove, in ibid., p. 42.
