Nasher Sculpture Center
October 2021
October 16, 2021–January 9, 2022
In the first major museum presentation focused solely on Bove's formidable steel sculptures, Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures will bring together nine sculptures from the last five years, two of which have been made especially for the Nasher’s exhibition. Organized by Nasher Curator Dr. Catherine Craft, Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures will provide an in-depth consideration of one of the most consequential artists working today.
Welding and bolting together different forms of steel, from found scrap metal to tubes coated in rich, matte layers of color, the sculptures highlight Bove’s investigations of spontaneity and discontinuity in relation to her materials and the ways these sculptures present, in her words, “a story of movement and pressure, force and softness.”
Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures also explores Bove’s work in relation to traditions of twentieth-century sculpture: Working with Dr. Craft, Bove has selected a group of small works from the Nasher’s permanent collection—miniatures, maquettes, models, and experiments—by artists ranging from Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso to Henry Moore and Tony Smith, that will delve into the mystery of scale: how large, or small, an object feels, relative to its actual size.
Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures will be accompanied by a richly illustrated, scholarly catalogue to be published in December 2021. In addition to documenting the exhibition, the book will include a broader consideration of Bove’s collage sculptures, with essays by Dr. Craft and curator and writer Lisa Le Feuvre, the Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation and former Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute.