Carol Bove is known for her simple yet intricate assemblages of found and hand-made objects that also encourage audience participation. Her media have included books, feathers, metal, concrete, and even repurposed work made by other artists, such as Bruce Connor. She is inspired by the political, social, and artistic movements of the 1960s and 1970s, even creating work based on one particular page from LIFE or a glamorous photo shoot discovered in an old magazine. The tableaus are meditative and often incorporate the gallery itself as a composition within which to experiment with “abstract gesture.” Bove considers the “familial narration of 20th century art history, favoring instinct over conventionality, responsive to periods of harmony and reverberations,” that utilize physical presence as a gateway to engagement. She is rewriting the canon as she creates it, seeking to observe the temporary transformations of “thing to art object, from collective to readymade.”

Bove has exhibited at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, Museion, Bolzano, Italy, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, Kunsthalle Zürich, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany, among many others. She participated in dOCUMENTA13, Kassel, the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, and the Whitney Biennial in 2008. Her sculptures were exhibited on New York’s High Line at the Rail Yards in 2013.