Alice Wang and Carol Bove
The Space of Free Play
The following conversation took place
on May 6, 2016, at Carol Boves studio
in Redhook, Brooklyn, and was edited
for publication.
Alice Wang: Artists tend to have very
sharp senses. For example, I believe
Czanne had the capacity to perceive
certain hues and dimensions that other
people could not. It enabled him to
render in two dimensions the unstable
and shifting reality of lived experi-
ence. In your practice as a sculptor,
you can probably sense certain mate-
rial and spatial subtleties because
youve invested so much training in
tuning into the dynamics of sculpture.
These subtle forces transcend ques-
tions of form or beautysomething else
is being activated.
Carol Bove: Theres some kind of non-
verbal intelligence in the shapes and
textures.
AW: This makes me think of the Felix
Gonzalez-Torres retrospective you
participated in at the Fondation
Beyeler. For me, Gonzalez-Torress
work is almost at a crossroads; it
can be framed in a conceptual way
or an institutional critique waybut
something else is also happening that
escapes language. I realized it when
you showedbut did not showhis work.
You displayed some of the pieces in
their packaging.
CB: At the Beyeler, one half of the
show I did was to restage a 1991 Felix
Gonzalez-Torres show called Every Week
There is Something Different. In the
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downstairs galleries at the Fondation
Beyeler, theres one room that has no
windows and is about the same scale
as the original Andrea Rosen gallery.
We built an architectural facsimile of
Gonzalez-Torress 1991 historical show,
and stored all of the materials for
the shows that werent on exhibition
in the room that you passed through
on your way to the exhibition. All the
boxes of candies, posters, and strings
of beads in the staging area were
part of pieces that we had to refab-
ricate using commercially available
and unmanipulated materials.
The show changed once a week, except
one week it changed twice. We would
move the work that had been on exhibi-
tion into the staging area. When you
walked through the staging area, you
would see the work that was not on
exhibitbut it was being exhibited as
not exhibited. It had a very different
energy. It was as if it was resting,
relaxing, because it was not perform-
ing. In the exhibition space, it was
performing. But it hadnt changed in
any way, it had just been moved. It
was arranged, but not into a complex
shape; it was just put in the corner
or made into the shape of a rectan-
gle. I thought it was really exciting
to see how subtle physical changes
completely changed the works ontologi-
cally. You still dont understand how
the material becomes sculpture, even
when the process is made completely
transparent.
Installation view, Gallery 20 staging area forEvery Week There is Something Different reconstruction, as
part ofFelix Gonzalez-Torres: Specific Objects without Specific Form,curated by Carol Bove. Fondation
AW: Its similar to what you said ear- Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland, July 31August 29, 2010. The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Courtesy of
lier in your studio about unintended Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York. Photo: Serge Hasenboehler.
 illusionismin the process of illusion
making, something else happened.
CB: One of the things that most inter-
ested me in doing this project was
seeing how Gonzalez-Torres had made
arrangements. He famously didnt have
a studio, so I have to imagine that
as he was making work he was expect-
ing to see it in the gallery for the
first time. So he was thinking about
the gallery almost as the muse; its
the invitation, its the situation. The
physical gallery space was probably
a really compelling formative space/
occasion, and the types of relation-
ships he made between objects were
very deliberate.
Gonzalez-Torres didnt invent the solo
show that looks like a group show,
but he created a very clear template
for it. Its not installation art, but
its very sensitive to the way its
installed. There are different types
of artworks in the space, and he
anticipated that a viewer would have
to interact with each of them really
differently. It places demands on the
viewer, because you cant just go in
and look at everything with the same
eyes or the same strategyyou have to
use a different interactive strategy
with each piece. For example, going
into a room with a beaded curtain
and interacting with that piece means
touching the piece and walking through
it. Thats your strategy as a viewer.
Then, going up to a candy piece, you
have to reset your strategywhatever
social awkwardness you feel about
taking candy, who do you ask if its
ok? The tension of breaking through
that barrier is part of your viewing
Installation view, Week 3 ofEvery Week There is Something Different(week of August 1, 2010), restaged
strategy. Personally, Im very inhib-
as part ofFelix Gonzalez-Torres: Specific Objects without Specific Form,curated by Carol Bove. Fondation
Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland, July 31August 29, 2010. Foreground:Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Go- ited about physically interacting with
Go Dancing Platform), 1991. Wood, lightbulbs, acrylic paint and Go-Go dancer in silver lam bathing suit, works of art; and grappling with my
sneakers and personal listening device, overall dimensions vary with installation, platform: 21 72 uneasy feelings around being asked to
72 inch. Background:Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled(Natural History), 1990. Framed black-and-white perform on the works terms is part
photographs; overall dimensions vary with installation, thirteen parts: 16 20 inch. each, image: 8 7 16 12
of viewing this type of art for me.
inch. each. Edition of 3. Background right:Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Chemo), 1991. Strands of beads
and hanging device, dimensions vary with installation. The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Courtesy of Andrea And that you would actually allow
Rosen Gallery, New York. Photo: Serge Hasenboehler. the sculpture to go into your body is
totally radical. But then its candy,
its sweet, its seductive. Theres a
lot of seduction in Gonzalez-Torress
workthe idea of moving the viewer
through the space suggesting different
actions to take. Sometimes he would
have a regular photograph and, as the
viewer, you would have to say to your-
self, now Im just going to look at
this as if this normal photograph is
a normal photograph. He heightens the
artificiality of the situation by mak-
ing all of these possibilities for the
viewer. Ultimately, youre looking at
display itself.
I had seen his work exhibited many
times over the years, but I hadnt
seen his sets of work, in other words,
all of the works he displayed together
in one exhibition considered as a
coherent grouping. It was so excit-
ing to see the groupings sequentially,
because the pieces related to each
other within one hanging, but the
hangings also interrelated across
the weeks. For example, in one week,
everything was on the left of the
gallery and in the next week every-
thing was on the right of the gallery.
Thats not in the documentation, but
its so clear in his intention. I see
this as an important part of his prac-
tice that he was doing but wasnt
talking about. I see these sets as
complete statements; theyre not art-
works per se but they are something
similar. I dont have a way to talk
about what the groupings are. As non-
objects, they resist language.
AW: The feeling of a heightened bodily
experience seems to be obvious with
Gonzalez-Torress work, because you
have to physically walk through the
curtain or eat the candy. But theres
also a strange mind-body trigger when
encountering your work, because I
cant touch any of it.
CB: You have to touch it with your
imagination.
7
9
AW: Yes, its a total mind-body expe-
rience. I remember seeing the platform
you made for The Foamy Saliva of a
Horse, at the Arsenale in the 2011
Venice Biennale, and being very con-
scious of the viewing experience. As
I walked around the gigantic plinth,
taking in the work from a low van-
tage point, I had to strain my body
in order to run my eyes over the
objects. Some scientists believe that
we dont have the cognitive capacity
to consciously process 100% of the
information we take in. This means
that involuntary cognitive processes
are happening, and the mind-body
can be cultivated to become aware of
these subtle cues. You use the phrase
psychic energy. Its not that its
non-intellectual; rather, as the title
of the catalog for your Kunstverein
Hamburg show in 2004 suggests, its
Below Your Mind.
CB: I want to set up these conflicts
between your intellect and other
types of experience.
AW: I feel that the type of intelli-
gence we are talking about applies not
only to art but also to sociopolitical
situations, such as diplomacy or even
in sportslike boxing. Theres a dif-
ferent order of knowledge at play.
CB: Ive been trying to find tools
to work with the intelligence that I
have thats nonverbal and not leading
with the verbal intelligence. Sensory,
social, emotional, pre-objectivethere
are these other types of intelligences
that you have, like pheromone recep-
tion, that are sources of information
and of intelligence. Your spiritual
sense, your survival instinct, and
your sense of your location, for
example, and all these other senses
that comprise your total intelligence
and outweigh your verbal intelligence.
But, its also important to try to
create bridges so that you can commu-
nicate verbally about them.
10
One thing that Ive been trying to
do along those lines for my work is
just to support my free associative
thinking, which is a type of think-
ing that works with images, sensations,
and emotions, and is more nonlin-
ear. Its inhibited by task-based
thinking, which is goal-oriented and
linear. There are so many things in
our culture that support task-oriented
thinking. Its greatI have nothing
against it. But, its overemphasized.
I was so happy recently to read about
all the neurons scientists are finding
in your stomachyou have this second
brain in your stomach. It makes me
think about your gut reaction, that
expression is based on this physical
reality.
AW: Finally, science can prove this
thing we all feel and know to be true;
its not wishy-washy.
CB: Right, its not wishy-washy; its
scientifically based. In Zen medita-
tion, they talk about putting your
consciousness in your abdomen. You
have a brain there, and you are
encouraged to use that visceral brain.
AW: Consciousness is much more
diffused. Seeing the different tex-
tures in your work, somehow my mind
starts to travel to my toes. Its not
conceptualor, if it is conceptual,
its not centered in the brain. Is
that possible?
CB: To have a non brain-based concep-
tual experience
AW: Focusing ones consciousness on
the gut in Zen meditationthats a
concept, but it transcends the cere- Above: Carol Bove, Io, 2014. Stainless steel and urethane paint. Beverly Gardens Park, Beverly Hills,
bral. Thats why I tend towards California. Courtesy of the artist, Carol Bove. David Zwirner New York/London and Maccarone New York/Los Angeles.
Buddhism, the I Ching, or the Tao Te Photo: Joshua White.
Ching. These ancient treatises con- Previous spread: Carol Bove, The Foamy Saliva of a Horse, 2011. Found metal, bronze, driftwood, sea shells,
peacock feathers, steel, gold chain, silver chain, foam, Styrofoam. 174 600 222 inch. Installation view,
tain concepts, but the way language is
54th International Art Exhibition, IlluminazioniIlluminations: la Biennale di Venezia/Venice Biennale, June
used in these texts also seems to pro- 4November 27, 2011. Carol Bove. Courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner New York/London and Maccarone New York/
duce an altered experience. Los Angeles.
 CB: Right, there is no stable self,
and we are constantly being influ-
enced and affected by our environment,
biology, and language.
AW: It was through reading your book
Below Your Mind that I was able to
enter your work through a completely
different mindset. You talk about the
unconscious impulse we have for read-
ing artworks; its almost the default
mode for experiencing contemporary
art. I find that your work has a con-
ceptual feel and can be read, but its
not entirely based on the intellect.
Yet, it doesnt end with the phenom-
enological either, because youre also
working with symbols.
CB: The idea of reading and referen-
tiality has been a concern for me in
the last few years because I see how
destructive it is, and how much it
cheats us from having actual art expe-
riences. There has to be more. But you
will read works of artand you have
to accept that your viewer will read
works of art. So how can you frustrate
reading so that you can have an expe-
rience and be open to not immediately
understanding it, like being open to
a paranormal encounter? In a paranor-
mal experience, you are introduced to
a concept that hadnt existed for you
before. It is an intrusion from some-
where else. Its totally disturbing.
A wound in reality. We want the wound
to close, and to make the wound close
we have to understand it. To under-
stand it, we have to put a concept to
it; once we have a concept, the wound
can close, and then we can be comfort-
able again. As a viewer, I think its
important to cultivate the idea that
its ok to have the wound in reality,
and for that you need a tolerance for
discomfort.
Foreground: Carol Bove, Oriented Plane, 2003. Sterling silver, monofilament and Plexiglass. Left: Carol AW: Its like having those wiggly
Bove, The Look of Thought, the Ways of Thought, 2003. Knoll tables, mirror, book. Right: Janine Lariviere,
lines slip into the viewers con-
Garden Flowers, by Janine Lariviere, 2003. Flower bulbs, glass and Plexiglas vases. Unlimited Xerox edition.
Installation view, Experiment in Total Freedom, Team Gallery, May 3June 21, 2003. Carol Bove. Courtesy of sciousness through their peripheral
the artist, David Zwirner New York/London and Maccarone New York/Los Angeles. vision.
13
CB: Something completely nonreferen-
tial would be something thats really
unknown. But also, I think theres a
way that an artist could work with
signs where the signs never resolve,
where the meanings are always ambigu-
ous and inconclusive yet they hold out
the promise of a definite meaning. As
a viewer, you are left chasing false
clues. The chase holds the discursive
intellect captive; meanwhile, the rest
of your intelligence can interact with
the poetic dimensions of the work.
These are the tools Ive been thinking
about.
AW: I feel that sometimes an artwork
thats perceived as beautiful can be
quickly dismissed; but that aspect
of seduction is something you are
actively working with. In the press
release for your show Plants and
Mammals at the Horticulture Society of
New York [2008], you wrote:
Flowers are shaped by many forces.
They reflect commerce, taste,
intellectual labor, fashion, cus-
toms, human emotional life. They
are indexical with a culture in a
given moment. They are the living
expression of social forces and
social experience. But all of this
content remains part of a hidden
dimension. Flowers are so lovely
and gratuitous, even dismissible.
When they are read at all it tends
to be for the content of an inter-
personal gesture. Like romantic
intentions. Or solidarity with the
bereaved.
This statement seems to encapsulate
your work in a really nice way: its
not just the surface, but it could be.
CB: It could flicker between being
nothing and being full of thingsbeing
empty or being full. That idea about
flowers is something Im really con-
scious of, as with any design object
or even with sculpture. A design
object manifests ideology. What we
were looking at in my studio upstairs,
those works could only be made in that
studio. The studio is the void that
they come into, so they really are the
product of the process that theyre
developed through, and the process
has meaning and intention.
People have this long-standing con-
flict with the idea of beauty. We dont
trust it because we dont trust our
motives. We are worried we like some-
thing because it is agreeable. Were
worried we like it because it appeals
to us and not because of some real
truth that its expressingbecause
truth is not always so comfortable,
and in fact, we know mostly its not
comfortable. So, its natural to be
suspicious. Because of this long-
standing prejudice against beauty, it
seems sexy to me to work with that,
since youre not suppose to do it.
AW: Its a bit kinky.
CB: Yes.
AW: Flowers, seashells, peacock
feathers, driftwood, and junk assem-
blagethese materials are considered
clich and almost taboo to use in
contemporary art. Yet, over the years
youve developed a sculptural lexicon
with these materials.
CB: I think the content of that per-
versity is part of the hookthats the
difficulty. As a viewer, you sense the
perversity of it, and thats why its
ok: its ok because its perverse. It
has invisible barbs. Thats the dis-
agreeable part of the work. And people
actually need that in order to inter-
act with art. So first theres the idea
of perversity, which makes interact-
ing with this art object ok, and then
theres hiding the difficulty in a form
thats difficult to perceive. You have
to always be creating different ways
to assault the viewer, and you have to
14
be very tricky about it. That sounds
like a defense for something, and I
feel more and more that its important
not to defend things, or to make things
that are indefensible. Something
beautiful could maybe in a way be
indefensible, but also undefended.
AW: Theres a disjuncture in the feel-
ing of your forms and how they become
what they are. Theres something at
work between whats happening in the
studio and when the objects are mani-
fested on display.
CB: The studio is a mess! Thats
the big difference. If youre mak-
ing things that are repeatable, its
craft; if youre making things that
are not repeatable then its art. But,
you cant really get skilled at mak-
ing art because the process is always
going to be different each time, and
the actual training is more in devel-
oping the capacity to recognize when
art happens. Its interesting, the
difference between capacity and skill,
even though they may be related.
We keep talking about meditation. Say
youre meditating with the idea that
if you keep meditating then youll
get enlightened. But, if you start
meditating in this goal-oriented way,
thinking that there are steps along
the path, you may never get there. But
if youre more open to the idea that
theres just going to be a flash and
something could happenyou dont know
where its going to happen and youre
just going to be patient about ityou
get to the goal, ironically, by being
non-goal oriented. You have to rely
on things that come from unexpected
places, being flexible and open to
insights. I think thats more the type
of capacity that you need in art mak-
ing. Those insights could come when
youre sick or when youre being your
Carol Bove, Setting for A. Pomodoro, 2006. Concrete, bronze, Arnaldo Pomodoro sculpture, driftwood, steel,
most lazy, where you least expected
and wood; 72 96 144 inch. Installation view, Strange Events Permit Themselves the Luxury of Occuring,
itor, in the worst situation. It Camden Arts Centre, December 7, 2007February 7, 2008. Curated by Steve Claydon. Carol Bove. Courtesy
could be hiding anywhere. the artist, David Zwirner New York/London and Maccarone New York/Los Angeles. Photo: Andy Keate.
AW: It goes back to the impulse of
reading the object, not letting the
object be something unknown, and
always trying to categorize it as
something recognizable. Eventually
it will be recognizedbut its that
moment, that special time period.
CB: Yes, its the lifecycle of the
object. In the beginning, its larval,
thats when its interesting. Thats
when you dont know what that is,
maybe its nothing, maybe its ter-
rible. And then people accept it, then
it goes to a museum, and then its kind
of deadand thats just the lifecycle.
AW: The manipulation of scale seems
to be an important element in your
work. The inspiration behind Setting
for A. Pomodoro [2006] was based on
an encounter you had being in the
Museum of Modern Art, looking down
at the sculpture garden from a higher
floor, these mini sculptures[each
one] a reduced linguistic unit
[describe] the relationship [between]
the miniature and the monumental.
I wonder if youve thought about the
function of scale in terms of Robert
Smithsons work, for example, in the
distinct experiences of encountering
the Spiral Jetty [1970], seeing the
photographs or drawings, watching the
film, walking on the actual artwork,
reading the text, and thinking about
the piece. In the essay The Spiral
Jetty, Smithson wrote:
The scale of the Spiral Jetty tends
to fluctuate depending on where the
viewer happens to be. Size deter-
mines an object, but scale determines
art. A crack in the wall if viewed
in terms of scale, not size, could be
called the Grand Canyon. A room could
be made to take on the immensity of
the solar system. Scale depends on
ones capacity to be conscious of the
actualities of perception. When one
refuses to release scale from size,
one is left with an object or language
16
that appears to be certain. For me
scale operates by uncertainty.
CB: Was Smithson interested in frac-
tals?
AW: Yesat least, it seems that way.
CB: Right, he made fractal forms,
but I wasnt sure that he knew about
fractals. I think fractals are inter-
esting; Im consistently drawn to
situations where you sense that
objects are detached from scale, where
you can see a monumental piece but
you know it was made from a smaller
piece. Or, where something looks like
a model, but theres nothing about it
that you can particularly identify
thats making it look like a model.
Those things can detach the object
from its scale and give you a sense
of floating freely. When scale seems
separable from the object, you see the
miniature in the monumental, but you
could also see the monumental in the
miniature.
AW: Maybe the question of scale is, in
a way, going back to the idea of your
work being conceptual, but not in the
CB: not in the tradition of conceptual
art coming out of the 1960s.
AW: Right.
CB: Yes, its more like conceptual art
coming out of Felix Gonzalez-Torres.
AW: Maybe the idea of scale is where
your work becomes conceptualits in
the process of imagining the fluctua-
tions between the miniature and the
monumental in relation to the body.
CB: Yes, that makes sense. Just to
bring it back to the idea of a con-
flict with the visceral experience,
you have to introduce the intellectual
Carol Bove, Flora's Garden I, 2012. Petrified wood, steel. 144 36 46 inch. Installation view, Carol Bove:
understanding to resolve the conflict, Flora's Garden, dOCUMENTA 13, June 9September 16, 2012. Curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. Carol
or to at least have interplay with the Bove. Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner New York/London and Maccarone New York/Los Angeles. Photo: Nils Klinger.
 conflict. Maybe what we were talking
about early on is the idea of how you
engage both, or how both are engaged.
In Flora's Garden I [2012], the
petrified wood as a material is inter-
esting, because it looks like wood but
its broken like a stone. You sense it
as a stone, but you sense it as wood
you have to negotiate the two. Its
speaking in the language of direct
experience, but you have to have more
of a cerebral knowledge that condi-
tions it.
AW: Right. The impulse of reading
guides the intellect, but the concep-
tual understanding doesnt sit well
with the phenomenological encounter.
Here, our total mind-body intelli-
gence is activated and sets in motion
involuntary cognitive processes. The
mind-body divide is frustrated in
this piece the same way that object
and scale or material and form can be
separated in your other pieces. Your
work seems to exist neither here nor
there in some latent imaginary zone.
CB: Yes, its a huge motif for me: the
thing floating. The heavy thing looks
light, the hard thing looks soft, and
everything is suspended.
travel with it up to a certain point.
But it never really takes you to where
it promises, so you then have to start
from square one and follow a different
clue, which is going to drop you some-
place else. Within that, theres a lot
of space for free play and free asso-
ciation, but it doesnt lead you to
the resolution of a riddle. Its never
going to resolve, its always going to
be a space of free play.
Endnotes
1. Tyler Green, Episode No. 89: Liza
Lou, Carol Bove, The Modern Art Notes
Podcast (July 18, 2013), https://manpodcast.
com/portfolio/no-89-carol-bove-liza-lou/.
2. Robert Smithson, The Spiral Jetty,
in The Writings of Robert Smithson: Essays
with Illustrations, Nancy Holt, ed. (New
York: New York University Press, 1979), 112.
3. Jennifer L. Roberts, The Taste of
Time: Salt and Spiral Jetty, in Robert
Smithson, Eugenie Tsai and Cornelia Butler,
eds. (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary
Art, and Berkley | Los Angeles | London:
University of California Press, 2004), 103,
note 20.

AW: Thinking of suspension, you

describe your sculptures as artworks
that can be disaggregated, and in
that constitution, they have a shift-
ing identity. What is the difference
between a hybrid and an aggregate?

CB: A hybrid would be an artwork in

which you can identify all the con-
stituent elements, kind of like the
genome, and in that frame, the work
can be understood: its part Brancusi,
but it has a 1980s Gucci look, and
Space Invaders. I have the three
parts, now I get it. I dont know how
you would make something that doesnt
do that, but thats my interest, to
Carol Bove, Mouse Hole, 2016. Found steel, stainless steel, urethane paint 47 46 46 inch. Carol Bove. almost refer you to some other place,
Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner New York/London and Maccarone New York/Los Angeles. Photo: Maris Hutchinson. giving false clues so that you can

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