David Zwirner’s Studio series exhibits online a small selection of images and videos of Carol Bove’s recent work and studies.
Carol Bove’s sculptures are made out of manipulated and crushed steel and scrap metal painted in vibrant colors. The result of this manipulation defies what would commonly be expected of the material. The sculptures’ showcase curves and ripples that emulate water or fabric alongside the clean, straight lines expected of the metallic material.
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| Carol Bove, The Phoenix Frolics at Cinnabar Hole, 2020
Stainless steel and urethane paint
17 1/8 x 23 3/4 x 27 inches
(43.5 x 60.3 x 68.6 cm)
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At first glance, the sculptures seem like models rendered in a 3D modeling program. Models made with said programs can make very believable realistic renderings. These renderings can then also be manipulated to defy expected real-life physics as seen in the works of artists such as Oliver Latta or Esteban Diácono. This defiance of expectation present in Bove’s sculptures is what urges me to draw that parallel. Bove even remarks in a video that “when objects look digital, that turns me on”, indicating that this parallel or reference to the digital is an intentional one.
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| Carol Bove, Forlorn Dork, 2020
Stainless steel and urethane paint
14 3/8 x 43 1/4 x 10 1/8 inches
(36.5 x 109.9 x 25.7 cm)
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My experience of the sculptures is mediated by a digital platform. That seems to reinforce the reference to digital media in the work and makes me wonder how that experience would differ if I had seen the works first in person. I think what Bove has achieved with the material certainly expands my perception of what is achievable with the physicality of the medium but makes me question why not expand it further than the aesthetics present in popular motion graphics design.
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