The Power Plant

The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, is excited to announce its Summer 2023 exhibition season—a showcase of contemporary Canadian art. The programming includes two solo exhibitions by Canadian artists Ron Terada and Jen Aitken, alongside the second part of the group exhibition in parallel featuring six artists with strong connections to Toronto. The exhibitions run from June 23–September 4, 2023 with free admission to the gallery.

Visitors can anticipate a multidisciplinary experience, with provocative approaches to language, form, and materials, engaging in topics such as digital and analogue media, built environments, and language-based forms of resistance.

The exhibitions will be accompanied by a wide variety of public programs including tours, talks, and workshops. Late openings on Thursdays and Fridays until 8 PM throughout the summer months will allow visitors to make the most of the longer days by the waterfront.

Families can engage with the exhibitions through Power Kids, free creative workshops for children aged 7–12 on select Sundays, and the new Power Kids Creative Hub located on the second floor of the gallery during regular opening hours. All programming details to be announced on The Power Plant’s Event Calendar.

“This summer, we are delighted to be exhibiting eight artists demonstrating the breadth and strength of the contemporary art landscape of Canada today. Encompassing both established artists and those earlier in their career, this season offers a variety of inspirations and opportunities to engage in conversations on the pressing issues of our time.” —Adelina Vlas, Head of Curatorial Affairs

Ron Terada
WE DID THIS TO OURSELVES

Curator: Kitty Scott, guest curator

Vancouver-based artist Ron Terada will present his first major solo exhibition in Toronto since 2018, including his monumental painting series TL; DR, 2017–22, and a newly commissioned sign sculpture in The Power Plant’s Fleck Clerestory that also lends its title to the exhibition.

TL; DR is a series of paintings featuring headlines generated from The Verge, an online tech-news source, recasting the captions in the distinct font used by The New York Times. TL; DR is internet slang for “too long; didn’t read,” and Terada’s wry works speak to our shared sense of frustration when faced with the overwhelming experience of today’s often catastrophic news. The exhibition features the latest body of work in the TL; DR series: an epic cycle of 325 paintings that tells a story of 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jen Aitken
The Same Thing Looks Different

Curator: Adelina Vlas, Head of Curatorial Affairs
Assistant Curator: Jacqueline Kok, Nancy McCain and Bill Morneau Curatorial Fellow, 2021–23

Jen Aitken is a Toronto-based artist whose first major institutional presentation features both new commissions and a selection of existing concrete sculptures. Primarily working in sculpture, Aitken’s practice considers how we relate to space, form, and material as we move through our urban environment. Common building materials—concrete, wood, and fibreglass—are formed into unexpected and ambiguous configurations that engage the viewer's body and interact with the gallery's architecture. Aitken will also debut her first video installation, animating the geometric language of her sculptures into an immersive prelude to the exhibition.

in parallel
Ella Gonzales, Micah Lexier, Matt Nish-Lapidus, Erdem Taşdelen, Sami Tsang, and Shaheer Zazai

Curators: Jacqueline Kok, Nancy McCain and Bill Morneau Curatorial Fellow, 2021–23, and Joséphine Denis, TD Curator of Education and Outreach Fellow, 2021–23

in parallel is the second iteration of a two-part exhibition that platforms the work of twelve artists with strong connections to Toronto, evoking The Power Plant’s very first exhibition, Toronto: A Play of History (Jeu d’histoire), 1987. The summer exhibition showcases works by Ella Gonzales, Micah Lexier, Matt Nish-Lapidus, Erdem Taşdelen, Sami Tsang, and Shaheer Zazai, and will feature painting, textile, video, ceramics, sculpture, and an interactive scavenger hunt around The Power Plant’s building.

Works by Anique Jordan and Simon Fuh from the first part of the exhibition will remain on display throughout the summer season.