Carol Bove’s assemblages are often constructed of multiple pieces with no apparent relation among them, arranged in configurations that produce meaning. In La traversée difficile, Bove places found materials and artifacts that go from organic materials and busts from other cultures to photographic images, referencing the arrangement of objects in a homonymous painting from 1926 by René Magritte. Here, the photograph of writer Gerald Heard reflects Bove’s interest in the counterculture of the 1960s in California, where the artist grew up, and how the Beat culture was one of her early influences. Through works such as this one she considers how display strategies are part of the complex mechanisms that affect our interpretation.