Entitled The Machine Age, this exhibition features a group of abstract sculptures that juxtapose contorted tubes of steel with highly reflective, perfectly finished closed cylinders made from the same material. The tubes’ matte urethane paint finish imparts a deceptive ...
Entitled The Machine Age, this exhibition features a group of abstract sculptures that juxtapose contorted tubes of steel with highly reflective, perfectly finished closed cylinders made from the same material. The tubes’ matte urethane paint finish imparts a deceptive impression of malleability and lightness. The works’ irregular forms and tempered surfaces also contribute to a subtly anthropomorphic quality, suggesting single reclining figures or perhaps the erotic union of pairs. While each sculpture in The Machine Age is crafted from one type of metal/steel, its components’ divergent surface treatments lend these individual elements distinct characters.
I’m really interested in other people – and seduction. I think a lot about the viewer. I imagine a viewer who is somewhat defiant and who has to be disarmed in order to get close.
– Carol Bove
Born in 1971 in Geneva and raised in Berkeley, California, Bove relocated to New York in 1993 where she still lives; earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University in 2000; and would later teach there from 2009 - 2013. Twenty- one years ago, the Kunst verein Hamburg, Germany held her first major museum exhibition, the first of many on both sides of the Atlantic as well as China. In 2017, not only did the Swiss Pavilion at the 57th Biennale di Venezia feature her work, but she exhibited in Lugano that year. More recently, her sculpture took pride of place on the façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York which commissioned it. In 2023, at Art Basel’s Paris+ she presented new sculptures, as she had done previously in 2002 at Art Basel.
Making largescale and steel works happens really, really slowly. There is a kind of gentleness in working with the steel. There are no sudden moves. The way that the compression works, it’s almost like an embrace. That’s how the softness is drawn out of the material. Steel is very hard, but under certain conditions, it’s liquid – so actually, it’s just relative, and one factor of that is time.
– Carol Bove
ALAN NAZAR IPEKIAN
Continuing to 24 March | Gagosian on the Promenade 79, Gstaad | Gagosian.com | Open Tuesdays to Sundays 11am1pm & 2:30 6pm
