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拍品专文
Carol Bove’s La Luce (2019) defies comprehension. Constructed from painted steel, the sculpture is seemingly soft and pliable, its pink surface appearing almost velvety. It consists of a folded steel tube crowned by a single, polished disc, lending it an anthropomorphic presence. Although abstract, La Luce resembles a figure resting its head on one hand in the manner of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker; the work’s title, meaning ‘the light’, also hints at an enlightenment. It expands on Bove’s series of Collage Sculptures, which she began in 2016. For these, as in La Luce, the artist compressed and bent steel scraps to form new and almost unbelievable textures, the works crinkling, torquing, and rippling in ways that border on the impossible.
Born in Switzerland to American parents, Bove grew up in Berkeley, California. As a child, she took drawing lessons with a neighbour and often visited the Berkeley Art Museum, where she was particularly fascinated by Arnaldo Pomodoro’s bronze Rotante dal Faro Centrale (1969). Time spent in the museum’s sculpture garden seeded an interest in the importance of space, which Bove understands as architectural and integral to her art. In this regard, her monumental sculptures echo those of Richard Serra, who also used steel to articulate an environment. But whereas Serra’s structures highlight steel’s inherent properties, Bove strives to subvert expectations, transforming the material into something hitherto unimagined. Her practice is as much about the art object as it is about fashioning moments of surprise. As Katherine Brinson, the curator of Bove’s 2026 retrospective at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, said, ‘Carol makes encounters in space that jolt you out of the everyday’ (quoted in D. Solomon, ‘With Bends, Crinkles and a Cool Decor Makeover, Carol Bove Takes the Guggenheim’, The New York Times, 26 February 2026).
Part of this jolt results from Bove’s joyful approach to colour. ‘[My] intention is to approximate a palette that would make sense in a digital context, on a screen’, she says. ‘At the same time, I choose colours that remind me of outdated print technology, and I play with combining colours that interfere with one another in the same way colour-separation printing can fail and cause frictions between areas of applied colour’ (in conversation with J. Burton, in Ten Hours, exh. cat., David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2019, p. 41). Critics have noted visual associations between Bove’s metal sculptures and the work of artists as varied as Odilon Redon, Willem de Kooning, and Donald Judd. By toying with perception, Bove brings humour and wonder to a material so often associated with heavy machinery and industry. Far from sombre or severe, La Luce is buoyant and open-ended, alive with a sense of improvisatory play that defines Bove’s understanding of art.
Born in Switzerland to American parents, Bove grew up in Berkeley, California. As a child, she took drawing lessons with a neighbour and often visited the Berkeley Art Museum, where she was particularly fascinated by Arnaldo Pomodoro’s bronze Rotante dal Faro Centrale (1969). Time spent in the museum’s sculpture garden seeded an interest in the importance of space, which Bove understands as architectural and integral to her art. In this regard, her monumental sculptures echo those of Richard Serra, who also used steel to articulate an environment. But whereas Serra’s structures highlight steel’s inherent properties, Bove strives to subvert expectations, transforming the material into something hitherto unimagined. Her practice is as much about the art object as it is about fashioning moments of surprise. As Katherine Brinson, the curator of Bove’s 2026 retrospective at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, said, ‘Carol makes encounters in space that jolt you out of the everyday’ (quoted in D. Solomon, ‘With Bends, Crinkles and a Cool Decor Makeover, Carol Bove Takes the Guggenheim’, The New York Times, 26 February 2026).
Part of this jolt results from Bove’s joyful approach to colour. ‘[My] intention is to approximate a palette that would make sense in a digital context, on a screen’, she says. ‘At the same time, I choose colours that remind me of outdated print technology, and I play with combining colours that interfere with one another in the same way colour-separation printing can fail and cause frictions between areas of applied colour’ (in conversation with J. Burton, in Ten Hours, exh. cat., David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2019, p. 41). Critics have noted visual associations between Bove’s metal sculptures and the work of artists as varied as Odilon Redon, Willem de Kooning, and Donald Judd. By toying with perception, Bove brings humour and wonder to a material so often associated with heavy machinery and industry. Far from sombre or severe, La Luce is buoyant and open-ended, alive with a sense of improvisatory play that defines Bove’s understanding of art.