Nicole Bauberger | The Party
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Yukon Artists @ Work Cooperative 4129 4 Avenue, Whitehorse, Yukon Y1A 1H7
Nicole Bauberger, "Flood"
ceramic. Courtesy of the artist.
Opening Reception: Friday March 3 from 5-8 p.m.
It’s not going to be easy to go into the gallery to see The Party by Nicole Bauberger at Yukon Artists At Work Gallery, but unless regulations change, you won’t have to put on a mask to do it.
Instead you’ll have to sit down, take off your boots, and put on slippers Nicole has hand-stitched for this purpose. That is, unless you’re ok with getting chalk pastel on your socks.
Bauberger is bringing her Radiant Circles installation indoors. In the past, she has invited the public to join her outdoors in creating concentric circles of colour on sidewalks or pavement using chalk pastels. She will create a temporary floor surface with cardboard diverted from recycling. As she draws the circles, she will leave some of them blank cardboard, to better reveal the tracks of those who pass through the show. Over the month, these traces will add up to a kind of gathering of those who attended the show – a party over time.
But that’s just the floor. Bauberger will hang a “party” of small ceramic dress form sculptures, whose hollows will also evoke both the presence and absence of guests. In addition, she’s planning a large trompe-l’oeil canvas, and an interactive wall of “conversation pieces,” to which guests can chime in with postit notes.
Having planned all this, Bauberger realized she was still missing important things – food and music. She’s planning Mexico-inspired opening treats, with Dave Haddock and Lonnie Powell playing. For the month’s duration of the show, Bauberger will hide chocolate in the dresses. She will also set up a tablet, open to Music Yukon’s Arts in the Park web page, where you can access CJUC recordings of Arts in the Park concerts from the seasons of 2020 and 2021.
You are invited to choose your Yukon musician, put on the slippers, and see if you can find any chocolate in the crowd, in this installation that evokes how necessary casual shared celebration remains, whether or not humans are still dangerous.
Check out the drawing of the Radiant Circles on FB live at https://fb.me/e/4usr22KD4, Monday Feb 27 at 3 pm.