Carol Bove
27 Sep - 27 Oct 2007
CAROL BOVE
"The Middle Pillar"
Maccarone Gallery is pleased to announce its first solo show with New York based artist, Carol Bove.
Bove's artistic output to date has been widely accepted as part of an enlarging social project congruous with her investigation into the philosophies and aesthetics of the l960s and early 70s, forging meditative environments designed for listening, reading, and looking. Using the past as artist material, Bove's chief medium has taken on a myriad of new historical references for The Middle Pillar. Continuing to employ sculpture, sound and installation in an architecture that feels inherently labyrinth-like by design, Bove takes the notion of the gallery as concrete pedestal, or tableau, one step further, utilizing the entire cubic volume of the space as compositional format. Creating a Structurist composition showcasing discrete works of her own devise along with works by other artists, the exhibition becomes a setting arranged with objects both of our time, and not, in dialogue with one another throughout the space.
Departing from previous installations, these tableaux achieve a declaration of physical presence, not just visually and conceptually but also serving as a gateway for the viewer to engage the eye and mind via the body. This gesture fractures from Bove's literal restrictions of historical materials, looking into the broader emblems of the twentieth century, all the while remaining fastened to the period that initially set her inquisition. Setting for A. Pomodoro, 2005, is the catalyst for these arrangements, serving as the exhibition's physical and thematic anchor. The Arnaldo Pomodoro sphere, circa 1963, functions as a metaphor for this new work, as its outer layer has been peeled away to reveal a skeleton of chaotic incisions and forms, thus echoing the circular nature of Bove's project.
The tableau has been broken down and dispersed throughout the gallery, gradually progressing by association of the individual objects on display within it. The bronze sphere is arranged alongside other sculptural elements - found driftwood, steel wire mesh, peacock feathers, rectangular brass plinths. Each object incites both memory and fantasy for the viewer, bringing to mind an array of various artists, movements and specific works of art; the list of allusions, or "ambiance cues", as the artist has coined them, runs deep. The concrete slab operates as a pavilion of display highlighting Bove's environmental approach to her practice, as well as the artist's astuteness for rhythm in the exercise of placement. Colors, forms and materials are choreographed with a sense of variety within harmony. Repetitions precede moments of surprise, synchronizing the works and thereby bringing a human touch to the white cube.
Additional concrete slabs scattered throughout the gallery, some installed upright, others on the ground or affixed to the gallery walls, each retain their own unique materiality. At first glance, they are basic, neutral surfaces; up close emerge imprints of the wood shells from which the objects were cast. The stains, shadows and faint silhouettes of grain achieve a quality of delicacy and femininity in an otherwise hard, concrete structure. The Night Sky Over New York, October 21, 2007, 9:00 pm, consisting of 475 bronze rods, acts as a canopy in the gallery's entryway, suspended from the ceiling in an arrangement pertaining to a specific "horoscope" during the exhibition. The universe is scaled down to the body as exterior becomes interior. Notions of the viewer's orientation and physical presence in relation to the object highlight the artist's idea that arbitrariness is inescapable, but precision can be realized.
Sharing her exhibition with other artists attests to both a particular generosity and modesty in the authorial voice within Bove's oeuvre. Bruce Conner's assemblage September 13, 1959, 1959 illustrates an unquestionably rigorous and legitimately avant-garde artist critical to Bove's practice. The side gallery showcases a group of paintings by Wilfred Lang (1915-1994), a Bay-Area artist whose work is almost entirely unknown today and collected by the artist's grandmother. This exhibition footnote harkens back to Bove's past installations that double as highly personalized archives. This collaborative emphasis is further echoed in the sound recordings of Bay-Area book dealer, Philip Smith, available for the show's duration. Bove produced the record and the cover image, underscoring how artists of the past and viewers of today both participate and complete this body of work.
Bove's current experiment results in a familial narration of 20th century art history, favoring intuition over rationality, sensitive to moments of connectivity and repetition, responsive to when the canon's door has closed.
Carol Bove was born in 1971 and raised in Berkeley, California. Recent solo exhibitions include the Kunstverein Hamburg and the Kunsthalle Zurich, as well as Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art and The Blanton Museum of Art, Austin Texas. The artist lives and works in New York
"The Middle Pillar"
Maccarone Gallery is pleased to announce its first solo show with New York based artist, Carol Bove.
Bove's artistic output to date has been widely accepted as part of an enlarging social project congruous with her investigation into the philosophies and aesthetics of the l960s and early 70s, forging meditative environments designed for listening, reading, and looking. Using the past as artist material, Bove's chief medium has taken on a myriad of new historical references for The Middle Pillar. Continuing to employ sculpture, sound and installation in an architecture that feels inherently labyrinth-like by design, Bove takes the notion of the gallery as concrete pedestal, or tableau, one step further, utilizing the entire cubic volume of the space as compositional format. Creating a Structurist composition showcasing discrete works of her own devise along with works by other artists, the exhibition becomes a setting arranged with objects both of our time, and not, in dialogue with one another throughout the space.
Departing from previous installations, these tableaux achieve a declaration of physical presence, not just visually and conceptually but also serving as a gateway for the viewer to engage the eye and mind via the body. This gesture fractures from Bove's literal restrictions of historical materials, looking into the broader emblems of the twentieth century, all the while remaining fastened to the period that initially set her inquisition. Setting for A. Pomodoro, 2005, is the catalyst for these arrangements, serving as the exhibition's physical and thematic anchor. The Arnaldo Pomodoro sphere, circa 1963, functions as a metaphor for this new work, as its outer layer has been peeled away to reveal a skeleton of chaotic incisions and forms, thus echoing the circular nature of Bove's project.
The tableau has been broken down and dispersed throughout the gallery, gradually progressing by association of the individual objects on display within it. The bronze sphere is arranged alongside other sculptural elements - found driftwood, steel wire mesh, peacock feathers, rectangular brass plinths. Each object incites both memory and fantasy for the viewer, bringing to mind an array of various artists, movements and specific works of art; the list of allusions, or "ambiance cues", as the artist has coined them, runs deep. The concrete slab operates as a pavilion of display highlighting Bove's environmental approach to her practice, as well as the artist's astuteness for rhythm in the exercise of placement. Colors, forms and materials are choreographed with a sense of variety within harmony. Repetitions precede moments of surprise, synchronizing the works and thereby bringing a human touch to the white cube.
Additional concrete slabs scattered throughout the gallery, some installed upright, others on the ground or affixed to the gallery walls, each retain their own unique materiality. At first glance, they are basic, neutral surfaces; up close emerge imprints of the wood shells from which the objects were cast. The stains, shadows and faint silhouettes of grain achieve a quality of delicacy and femininity in an otherwise hard, concrete structure. The Night Sky Over New York, October 21, 2007, 9:00 pm, consisting of 475 bronze rods, acts as a canopy in the gallery's entryway, suspended from the ceiling in an arrangement pertaining to a specific "horoscope" during the exhibition. The universe is scaled down to the body as exterior becomes interior. Notions of the viewer's orientation and physical presence in relation to the object highlight the artist's idea that arbitrariness is inescapable, but precision can be realized.
Sharing her exhibition with other artists attests to both a particular generosity and modesty in the authorial voice within Bove's oeuvre. Bruce Conner's assemblage September 13, 1959, 1959 illustrates an unquestionably rigorous and legitimately avant-garde artist critical to Bove's practice. The side gallery showcases a group of paintings by Wilfred Lang (1915-1994), a Bay-Area artist whose work is almost entirely unknown today and collected by the artist's grandmother. This exhibition footnote harkens back to Bove's past installations that double as highly personalized archives. This collaborative emphasis is further echoed in the sound recordings of Bay-Area book dealer, Philip Smith, available for the show's duration. Bove produced the record and the cover image, underscoring how artists of the past and viewers of today both participate and complete this body of work.
Bove's current experiment results in a familial narration of 20th century art history, favoring intuition over rationality, sensitive to moments of connectivity and repetition, responsive to when the canon's door has closed.
Carol Bove was born in 1971 and raised in Berkeley, California. Recent solo exhibitions include the Kunstverein Hamburg and the Kunsthalle Zurich, as well as Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art and The Blanton Museum of Art, Austin Texas. The artist lives and works in New York