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.

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.

Painted in bright yellow, Banana is presented directly on the wall, an installation format the artist debuted in 2021 in her solo exhibition at David Zwirner's East 69th Street gallery. Bove's wall-mounted sculptures operate in tension with the architecture that supports them. The colorful, matte finishes of these sculptures render the steel effortlessly malleable, as if clay-like, and the folds and turns of steel of these works likewise operate in tension with their perceived lightness, confounding perception.

As the artist has noted, "We think stainless steel is hard and strong, and I'm wondering if this is really the case. Is there a gentle and persistent way to act on it so that it will behave differently? Can it be tricked into showing a different side? Under what conditions is it soft and supple?… I also imagine 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."¹

¹Carol Bove, in "Dimensions: Carol Bove in Conversation with Johanna Burton," in Carol Bove: Ten Hours. Exh. cat. (New York: David Zwirner Books, 2019), p. 42.