Born in 1971 in Geneva to American parents, Bove (pronounced bo-VAY) was raised in Berkeley, California, moved to New York in the 1990s, and graduated from New York University in 2000. She was an artist-in-residence at Yale University Art Gallery in 2010, where she pursued research on the history of architecture on the Yale campus and the effect of changing tastes in painting conservation on the Gallery's collection.
Work
Using a wide range of materials, including steel, concrete, books, driftwood, peacock feathers, seashells, and foam, Bove’s diverse practice encompasses sculpture, installation, and drawing. Her oeuvre plays with questions of materiality, re-presenting and updating historical strategies of display. As the art historian Johanna Burton notes, "Bove brings things together not to nudge associative impulses into free play driven by the unconscious, but rather to conjure a kind of affective tangle that disrupts any singular, historical narrative."
Bove is perhaps best known for her large-scale sculptures, which she has described as "big, heavy, but fragile." Her sculptures are often displayed outside or in public spaces. For example, the steel and petrified wood sculpture Lingam was installed in City Hall Park in New York as part of the 2016 summer group exhibition, The Language of Things, while Bove’s 2013 show, Caterpillar, featured seven large-scale sculptures specifically created for the High Line at the Rail Yards in New York.
Earlier works by Bove range in form and medium from ink drawings of nude women taken from vintage Playboy magazines to sculptures composed of curated bookshelves featuring volumes from the 1960s and 70s. In past exhibitions, Bove has also included the work of other artists in her installations. In a 2007 show at Maccarone, she presented work by the artist Bruce Conner, Berkeley book dealer Philip Smith, and painter Wilfred Lang. Similarly, Bove designed her 2014 installation, Setting for A. Pomodoro, which features a baroque assemblage of driftwood, peacock feathers, pedestals, and bases, as a setting for a sculpture by the Italian Modernist Arnaldo Pomodoro. Every time the installation has been exhibited, it has featured a different Pomodoro sculpture.
In 2016, after working from a studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn for many years, Bove moved her practice to a former brick factory near the Brooklyn waterfront.
Exhibitions
Since she started exhibiting in the late 1990s, Bove’s work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Common Guild, Glasgow (both 2013); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2010); Horticultural Society of New York (2009); Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas (2006); Kunsthalle Zürich; Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (both 2004); and the Kunstverein Hamburg (2003). In 2017, Bove represented Switzerland at the 57th Venice Biennale. Other major group exhibitions include Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany (2012); the 54th Venice Biennale (2011); and the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2008).
Bove's sculptures were part of the High Line Show Caterpillar, one of the last opportunities to see the undeveloped High Line. Bove's work is jointly represented by Maccarone, New York, and David Zwirner, New York.
Selected exhibitions
2017
57th Venice Biennale, Venice
Grey Matters, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio
The Artist's Voice: Carol Bove - Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
2016
Carol Bove: Polka Dots, David Zwirner, New York
The Artist’s Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
The Language of Things, City Hall Park, New York (organized by Public Art Fund, New York)
Her Crowd: New Art by Women from Our Neighbors’ Private Collections, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut
The Keeper, New Museum, New York
L'esprit du Bauhaus/The Spirit of the Bauhaus, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
Making and Unmaking, Camden Arts Centre, London
2015
Carol Bove: The Plastic Unit, David Zwirner, London
America Is Hard To See, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Another Minimalism: Art after California Light and Space, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh
Hôtel Dunkerque, Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain (FRAC) Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque, France
The Persistence of Objects, Lismore Castle Arts, Ireland
Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Venganza (I Don’t Want To Be Friends), ARMADA, Milan
2014
Carol Bove/Carlo Scarpa, Museion - Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bolzano (itinerary: Henry Moore Institute, Leeds and Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle)
Earthly Delights, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Post-Picasso: Contemporary Reactions, Fundació Museu Picasso de Barcelona
La Beauté de l’Enfer, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brüssel
Greater New York 2005, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City
Girls on Film, Zwirner & Wirth, New York
Icestorm, Kunstverein Münich, Munich
2004
Formalismus - Moderne Kunst, heute, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg
"Black Friday. Exercises in Hermetics", Galerie Kamm, Berlin
Moment 1 / Carol Bove, ICA Boston, Boston, MA
Carol Bove, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich
Carol Bove, A Pattern Language: Intimacy Gradient, Hotel, London
Curious Crystals of Unusual Purity, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York
Formalismus. Moderne Kunst, heute, Kunstverein Hamburg
Playlist, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
2003
Carol Bove - The Science of Being and the Art of Living, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg
Influence, Anxiety, and Gratitude, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA
2002
XEROS - Projet mobile et reproductible sur les sexualites et l'espace, Le Magasin - Centre National d'Art Contemporain de Grenoble, France
Selected Talks
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston MA (March, 2017)
The Artist's Voice: Carol Bove. Carol was discussing her artwork, intention, and display strategies. In her display strategies, display mechanisms are the gist of her artwork. As Carol mentioned in the talk: "Language of display derived from poetic philosophical dimensional display.. experience is conditioned by experience".
Carol was inspired by architecture, therefore, her artwork expresses minimalism in forms and language of display. She looked at 60s to see classical period and expressions at that time to reflect her ideas in the artwork. Carol Bove's work is mainly shown as interior architecture and displays. Minimalism, abstraction, and connection with classical period were her intentions in artwork.
Collections
Work by the artist is represented in permanent collections worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain (FRAC) Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque, France; Colección Jumex, Mexico City; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey; the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.
Selected Articles
"5 Triumphant National Pavilions at the Venice Biennale, From Finnish Robots to Canadian Floods" by Lorena Muñoz-Alonso, artnet.com, May 2017
"Sculpture's Woman of Steel, Carol Bove" by Randy Kennedy, New York Times, November 2016
"In the Studio with Carol Bove, The Sculptor Who Bends Steel as if It Were Plastic" by Stephanie Eckardt, W Magazine, November 2016
"Carol Bove's Seductive Sculptures Force Us to Confront Our Inner Animal" by Adrian Searle, The Guardian, April 2015
"Carol Bove Interview" by Freire Barnes, Time Out London, April 2015
"At Home in Two Places: Carol Bove's Sculpture Show at the High Line and MoMA" by Karen Rosenberg, New York Times, July 2013
"Carol Bove" by Brian Sholis, Art in America, May 2012
"Carol Bove and Janine Lariviere: The Horticultural Society of New York" by Lisa Turvey, Artforum, October 2009
"Carol Bove: The Personality of Peacock Feathers" by Ann Landi, ARTnews, September 2008
"Best of 2007: Carol Bove, Maccarone" by David Rimanelli, Artforum, December 2007
"Shelf Life: Barry Schwabsky on the Art of Carol Bove" Artforum, January 2005
"Artists on the Verge of a Breakthrough" New York Metro, March 7, 2005
Momentum 1/Carol Bove at ICA Nonstarving Artists, June 4, 2004
"Experiment in Total Freedom includes a variety of works" by Martha Schwendener, Artforum, October 2003.
Bove Sculpture Shows at the High Line and MoMA "Carol Bove Sculpture Shows at the High Line and MoMA"