For the reason that early 2000s, Bove—who was born near Gstaad, in Geneva—has centered on the interdependence of artworks and their contexts. A poetic use of artifacts and supplies starting from discovered objects to industrial {hardware}, together with an acute consciousness of architectural websites and modes of show, continues to steer her follow. Embracing the methods of modernist formalism as a degree of departure, Bove’s current metallic sculptures discover beforehand missed openings within the standard narrative of artwork historical past, their appropriated titles including additional layers of reference.

“The Machine Age” contains a group of summary sculptures that juxtapose contorted tubes of metal with extremely reflective, completely completed closed cylinders created from the identical materials. The tubes’ matte urethane paint end lends their types a misleading impression of malleability and lightness, whereas their punctuation by squat, shiny “polka dot” cylinders hints at disparate kinds together with Artwork Deco, Memphis, and Minimalism. The works’ irregular types and tempered surfaces additionally contribute to a subtly anthropomorphic high quality, suggesting single reclining figures, or maybe the erotic union of pairs. The exhibition design makes playful use of the gallery’s two totally different elevations to facilitate a spread of attainable sight traces.

Whereas revealing the affect of such artists as John Chamberlain, John McCracken, and David Smith, Bove’s new works additionally resonate with the uncared for custom of “plaza artwork,” a cheekily named subvariant of mid-century summary sculpture produced from industrial supplies that was rejected by most critics in favor of Minimalism, however which retains an indelible public presence. Whereas every sculpture in “The Machine Age” is crafted from one kind of metallic—metal—its elements’ divergent floor remedies lend these particular person components distinct characters. This variance prompts viewers to query their assumptions concerning the “inherent” qualities of acquainted substances, and maybe to rehabilitate the worth of plaza artwork’s bias towards particular person subjectivity.

The palettes of Bove’s sculptures are derived partly from current artwork. In her essay for {the catalogue} accompanying the exhibition “Carol Bove: Collage Sculptures” on the Nasher Sculpture Heart, Dallas, in 2021–22, curator Catherine Craft factors out chromatic resonances between Bove’s works and people of different artists—notably each sculptors and painters—together with Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, and Donald Judd. In engaged on “The Machine Age,” Bove discovered herself absorbed within the work of French Symbolist painter Odilon Redon (1840–1916), who employed a mix of acrid hues and pale pastels designed to boost his compositions’ otherworldly aura. By putting in her sculptures on custom-designed white pedestals, Bove permits such connections free play whereas undergirding their visible relationships with one another and the gallery inside, suggesting a rootedness in each the observable world and the realms of mind and creativeness.

at Gagosian, Gstaad
till March 24, 2024