Unfold This Moment explores the work of Carol Bove, one of the
most inventive and protean artists of her generation, whose practice has
expanded—via numerous stylistic evolutions over two decades—from ethereal
drawings of
Playboy models to towering crushed-metal sculptures.
Considering both her art and her life, the book offers a linear history of
a figure who doesn't believe in linear time—her work evoking multiple
temporalities
simultaneously—and who harbors covertly radical ambitions for what art
might do to the viewer's mind and body: not least how, without slipping
into esotericism, it might serve as a gateway to meditative states. But,
as befits someone who strategizes to displace her own ego in her art, the
writing here refocuses Bove's artistic output into a prism for wider
questions of artistic conduct and inspiration. How to react resourcefully
to unhelpful frameworks of reception; maintaining curiosity while
performing the increasingly professionalized role of being a successful
artist; the value of instinct and the unconscious in creativity; openness
to magical coincidences; and the overlap between the intellectual
territory of contemporary art and some of the oldest spiritual
philosophies.
Carol Bove (born 1971 in Geneva, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York)
was raised in Berkeley, California, and studied at New York University.
Between 2009 and 2013, she was a clinical associate professor of studio
art in Steinhardt's Department of Art and Art Professions at NYU.
Known for works that incorporate found and constructed elements with a
unique formal, technical, and
conceptual inventiveness, Carol Bove stands
as one of the foremost contemporary artists working today; her work has
consistently challenged and expanded the possibilities of formal
abstraction.
In 2014, The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, with Museion, Bolzano, Italy,
and Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium, organized an exhibition with
Carol Bove and
Carlo Scarpa. Venues that
have hosted significant solo exhibitions include The Museum of Modern Art,
New York (2013); The Common Guild, Glasgow (2013);
Palais
de Tokyo, Paris (2010); Tate St Ives, England (2009); Blanton Museum
of Art, The University of Texas at Austin (2006); Kunsthalle Zürich
(2004); and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2004). The artist's
first major museum presentation was held at Kunstverein, Hamburg, in 2003.
Group exhibitions featuring Bove's work include the 58th Venice Biennale
(2019); the 57th Venice Biennale (2017); documenta 13, Kassel, Germany
(2012); the 54th Venice Biennale (2011); and the Whitney Biennial, Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York (2008).
The artist's large-scale
sculptures
are often exhibited outdoors and in public spaces. Bove debuted her
largest sculpture to date at the 2018 edition of “Unlimited” at Art Basel.
In 2017, the artist's sculptures were installed in the Betty and Edward
Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria, The Contemporary Austin. That same
year, her work was on view in “Women of Venice” at the Swiss Pavilion at
the 57th Venice Biennale, where she was invited to respond to the legacy
of Swiss artist
Alberto Giacometti.
Bove's steel-beam sculpture
Lingam (2015) was installed in City
Hall Park in New York as part of the 2016 group exhibition, “The Language
of Things”, organized by Public Art Fund. In 2013, she created a series of
sculptures for the High Line at the Rail Yards in New York.
Work by the artist is represented in permanent collections worldwide,
including the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville,
Arkansas; Fonds régional d'art contemporain (FRAC)
Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Dunkirk, France; Institute of Contemporary
Art, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Princeton University Art
Museum, New Jersey; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Wadsworth Atheneum
Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.
Martin Herbert is a writer and critic living in Tunbridge Wells, UK, and Berlin. He is associate editor of
ArtReview and a regular contributor to
Artforum,
frieze, and
Art Monthly, and has lectured in art schools internationally. His monograph
Mark Wallinger, a comprehensive study of the British artist's career, was published in 2011.
