Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures

Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures presents an extensive look into the contemporary artists work over the past five years and her ongoing exploration of scale, color, material, and artistic traditions of the twentieth century. Boves recent work engages the conceptual concerns of mid-century sculpture, such as spontaneity, industrial materials, and the potential of painted sculpture. However, within this space of familiar sculptural traditions, Bove has discovered new approaches that lead to places previously unknown. Boves collage sculptures are created from scrap metal and stainless steel that has been carefully worked into sinuous forms and are frequently painted. Considering the hard rigidity of the steel, the works possess an appearance of almost impossible softness, as if steel could become as pliable as clay. Such works range from small pedestal sculptures to large, imposing compositions. Boves interest in scale and how a viewers understanding of an artwork shifts depending on its context are explored through a selection of small works from the collection of the Nasher Sculpture Sculpture. Published by the Nasher Sculpture Center, the catalogue features beautiful reproductions of Boves work and an introduction as well as an essay by curator Catherine Craft on the development of the collage sculptures and their relationship to other artists and traditions of modern sculpture. Also included is an essay by Lisa Le Feuvre that explores Boves complex work by means of a thematic alphabet related to the artists interests.