Late Night Convenience

Rhonda Weppler + Trevor Mahovsky

A transparent store is filled with 2,000 lanterns, individually fashioned from acetate copies of packaged goods typically sold in late-night grocery shops.  Yet here the items are free, and visitors can take one away. As the store depletes, the lanterns migrate into the night like so many fireflies. A sentimental version of a closing-out fire sale, this work invites as many questions about the nature of gifts as it does about things that are sold. Late Night Convenience underscores the ephemeral nature of Flux Night, an event that requires intense artistic labor and yet is over in one night, its lingering effects remaining in the memories of those who gathered after dark together.

Originally called All Night Convenience, the piece was commissioned by Christina Ritchie for Nuit Blanche in Toronto in 2012 and has been reconceived for Flux Night.

About the Artist

Rhonda Weppler (born in Winnipeg) and Trevor Mahovsky (born in Calgary) are San Francisco- and Toronto-based artists who have worked collaboratively since 2004. Both artists have MFA degrees from the University of British Columbia, where they met in 1996. They have exhibited in galleries and museums institutions internationally including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Vancouver Art Gallery, LABoral in Gijon, Dos de Mayo in Madrid, the Power Plant in Toronto, Musée d’art Contemporain in Montreal, Tokyo Wonder Site, and loop-raum in Berlin. Weppler’s work has also been exhibited at the Palazzo delle Papesse in Sienna and COCA in Seattle. Mahovsky’s work has been shown at the Queens Museum of Art in New York; he has written for catalogues and journals such as Artforum and Canadian Art. Their work is represented in public collections including the Musée d’art Contemporain de Montreal and the National Gallery of Canada.