Unfold This Moment - The Art of Carol Bove

Unfold This Moment explores the work of Carol Bove, one of the most inventive and protean artists of her generation, whose practice has expanded-via numerous stylistic evolutions over two decades-from ethereal drawings of Playboy models to towering crushed-metal sculptures. Considering both her art and her life, the book offers a linear history of a figure who doesn't believe in linear time-her work evoking multiple temporalities simultaneously-and who harbors covertly radical ambitions for what art might do to the viewer's mind and body: not least how, without slipping into esotericism, it might serve as a gateway to meditative states. But, as befits someone who strategizes to displace her own ego in her art, the writing here refocuses Bove's artistic output into a prism for wider questions of artistic conduct and inspiration. How to react resourcefully to unhelpful frameworks of reception; maintaining curiosity while performing the increasingly professionalized role of being a successful artist; the value of instinct and the unconscious in creativity; openness to magical coincidences; and the overlap between the intellectual territory of contemporary art and some of the oldest spiritual philosophies.