CAROL BOVE: VASE/FACE

David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of new steel sculptures by Carol Bove at the gallery’s Paris location. Featuring sandblasted stainless steel sculptures and wall-mounted works in painted color, the exhibition is Bove’s first solo show in Paris since 2010.

On view in the main gallery space are large-scale sculptures made of crumpled stainless steel tubing, each combined with a large, circular glass disk. Presented in a monochrome environment, the installation considers the phenomenological experience of form and the surrounding spatial context. The installation includes a three-dimensional construction of a “Rubin’s vase,” the well-known optical illusion first developed in the early twentieth century by the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin. This ambiguous perceptual relationship relates to the paradoxes and ellisions at play in the overall installation between positive and negative space, and the apprehension of form versus gestalt. The adjacent galleries feature an installation of wall-mounted sculptures in colorful matte finishes that paradoxically render the steel tubing as if it were effortlessly malleable.

Together, the works on view further Bove’s engagement with the limits of physicality and perception, and attest to the artist’s ongoing exploration of the possibilities of abstract sculpture.