there is nothing you can think that is not the moon
Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky
Café at The Arts Center at Governors Island
May 6 - October 1, 2023
Friday-Sunday, 12pm-6pm
Fri-Sat-Sun, plus Memorial Day and Labor Day 12pm - 6pm
Special late hours: Saturdays in July and August, galleries will stay open until 7pm
This site-specific installation by collaborative duo Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky will transform during the exhibition. The black shed currently houses a collection of glowing replicas of antique and vintage objects, originally gathered for the artists’ ongoing public art project, which has previously been staged as a life-scale mock thrift store on the streets of Washington, Toronto, and Orebro (Sweden). Each object is created in the form of a handmade lantern, assembled from photographs of objects collected and intensively documented by the artists. They are lit in changing patterns that organize the collection into categories such as type and city of origin.
In August, these lanterns will be given away to visitors, an offering for the objects to enter into a new phase and history. The shed will then house a new collection of lanterns which will be made by the public over the course of the exhibition. The artists invite you to recreate an object that you have lost or given away, and that you desire to be connected with again.
The title of the work is taken from the words of the Japanese Haiku poet Matsuo Basho. “There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.”
For more information about this project please visit WepplerMahovsky.com
Special Thanks to Wade Weppler, lighting programmer, and the Swedish American Museum in Chicago for access to their archives.
2023 Exhibitions
Where Time Runs Backwards
by Daniel Shieh
With Chia-Lun Chang and Arleene Correa Valencia
Upper Gallery at The Arts Center at Governors Island
Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky, based in New York and Toronto respectively, have worked collaboratively since 2004. Their work has increasingly incorporated communal aspects of craft, such as DIY tutorial videos, and virtual crafting bees. Their recent video project Crafts Abyss was hosted by the Museum of Arts & Design, NYC. Their work is in collections including the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Musee d’art Contemporain de Montreal. Weppler was an artist in residence with the School of Visual Arts NYC (MFA program, 2017), and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (Governor’s Island, 2021). In 2018 she completed a major project for the Community Arts program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. They have received a Glenfiddich Residency Prize (2014), and an LL Odette Sculpture Residency at York University (Toronto, 2022). Their exhibitions in 2022-23 included OpenArt (Orebro, Sweden), and Susan Hobbs Gallery (Toronto).