Carol Bove

Gagosian is pleased to present Carol Bove’s debut exhibition at the gallery following its recent announcement of the artist’s global representation. Hardware Romance opens at Park & 75 in New York on November 3, 2023.

Hardware Romance presents Bove’s 2021 sculpture of the same title, which she produced as a precursor to her sculptural installation The séances aren’t helping (2021), the second commission to be featured on the façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Just as the commission was on view twenty-four hours a day, and interacted with its environment accordingly, so is Hardware Romance lit and visible around the clock from the street on Park Avenue for the duration of the exhibition.

Since the early 2000s, Bove has focused on the interdependence of artworks and their contexts. From found objects to industrial construction hardware and architectural sites, her poetic use of materials is amplified by her current work in large-scale metal sculpture. She embraces the strategies of modernist formalism as a point of departure, exploring previously overlooked openings in the conventional narratives of art history. “We think stainless steel is hard and strong,” she has reflected, “and I’m wondering if this is really the case. Is there a gentle and persistent way to act on it so that it will behave differently?”