It’s not going to be easy to go into the solo show room to see The Party by Whitehorse-based artist 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.
For The Party, 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 this abstraction of a party, Bauberger realized she was still missing important things – food and music. She’s planning Mexico-inspired reception treats, with Dave Haddock and Lonnie Powell playing at the opening. After the opening, for the month’s duration of the show, Bauberger will hide chocolate in the dresses. You can eat it if you find it – but please take just one. 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 will be invited to choose your Yukon musician, put on the slippers, and see if you can find any chocolate in the crowd.
Visit Bauberger in person every Saturday the show is up – March 4, 11, 18 and 25, she will be in attendance while the Yukon Artists At Work Gallery is open, 11 am to 4 pm.
She is inspired in part by her dialogue with Nakai Theatre over the past few years. Artistic director Jacob Zimmer has written about overlap between making a good show and throwing a good party in addition to being fun and lively, this exhibition is a way that Bauberger is thinking this idea through a little further.
In The Party Bauberger hopes to evoke how necessary casual shared celebration remains, whether or not humans are still dangerous.
Bauberger is grateful for the support of Jazz Yukon in helping pay Dave Haddock and Lonnie Powell.
The Party will open Friday March 3 from 5-8 p.m. It will remain in place until Wednesday March 29 at 4 pm. The Yukon Artists At Work Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 11 am to 4 pm, in the blue building at the corner of Wood St. and 4th Avenue.
Check out the drawing of the Radiant Circles on Facebook live at https://fb.me/e/4usr22KD4, Monday February 27 at 3 pm. Stay tuned for a Facebook live tour of the show in March, if you can’t get there in person.
