Carol Bove - Polka Dots

Carol Bove (1971-)

Carol Bove is an American artist known for her simple yet intricate assemblages of found and made objects. Carefully arranged on pedestals, elevated platforms, or directly against walls and ceilings, these yield unexpected, poetic, and multilayered meanings, which seem to derive from the composition of the objects rather than the inherent substance of the individual components. Using a wide range of materials, including books, driftwood, peacock feathers, metal, concrete, foam, and loans from other artists, Bove’s works are subtle assemblages resisting categorization despite their determined relationships with modernist display methods.

Offering a unique glimpse into an artist’s studio, this publication visually explores both the process and the finished work of one of today’s leading contemporary artists.
Built around a series of photographs by Andreas Laszlo Konrath taken over the course of multiple visits to Carol Bove’s studio in Brooklyn, this catalogue offers a behind-the-scenes look into her practice. Through the photographs, the reader experiences not only the development of her most recent body of sculptures—referred to by the artist as “collage sculptures”—but also the materials and conditions that contribute to their creation. They are constructed from square steel tubing that has been crushed and shaped at the studio, found scrap metals, and shallow, highly polished discs. Painted in vivid colors, the sculptures appear lightweight and improvisational despite their heavy materiality. In addition to Konrath’s rich and intimate photographs, also included are images of individual works shown silhouetted out of their original context, an attempt by the artist to draw the viewer away from typical ways of experiencing sculpture.

Created by the artist in close collaboration with designer Joseph Logan and published on the occasion of her eponymous show at David Zwirner, New York, in November 2016, Polka Dots features an essay by Johanna Burton that charts Bove’s fascination with process and commitment to disrupting traditional ways of seeing. A chronology provides a summary of Bove’s exhibitions and installations in major museums and private institutions around the world, offering a thorough resource for those interested in the artist’s development across time.