Sculptor Carol Bove, whose ‘Ten Hours’ exhibition is coming to Hong Kong, on steel and ways of seeing
Fresh from this year’s Venice Biennale, the American artist is earning her master illusionist credentials with huge, heavy, hulking sculptures that ooze ethereality
Not nearly as gentrified as northern neighbours Williamsburg or Dumbo, Red Hook is one part of Brooklyn where there is still space. Space, and pre-fitted metal-crushing equipment.
American conceptual artist Carol Bove’s brick-walled New York studio is infused with sunlight from the original factory windows, making even more vibrant the oranges, yellows and pinks of her works. Either displayed on a pedestal or set among shards of scrap metal, the malleable-clay-like appearance of the sculptures belies their rigidity and heft. Weighing up to 360kg (her largest to date being a staggering 450kg), Bove’s pieces are as heavy-duty as the equipment required to construct them.
This year, her work has featured at the Venice Biennale as well as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, alongside pieces by late sculptor John Chamberlain as part of a two-person show.
And now Bove, who has been showing publicly since graduating from New York University in 2003, is gearing up for her first solo exhibition in Asia, at David Zwirner Hong Kong, which opens on November 1.
“In my work, a lot of times I am bringing illusionism to the surface,” says the 48-year-old. “In the recognition and acknowledgement of illusion you see the construction of the image or of reality – or the Maya.”
