WE DID THIS TO OURSELVES

Ron Terada

Past Exhibition

Jun 23 – Sep 04 2023

Ron Terada, TL; DR 4, 2019–20. 52 acrylic-on-canvas paintings, 305 x 1,585 cm. Courtesy Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver. Photo: Rachel Topham Photography.

PRESENTING DONOR: Eleanor and Francis Shen
MAJOR DONORS: Elisa Nuyten
Jay Smith and Laura Rapp
SUPPORTING DONORS: Robin and Malcolm Anthony
Philip Lind and Ellen Roland
Nadir and Shabin Mohamed

GUEST CURATOR: Kitty Scott

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 Fleck Clerestory that also lends its title to the exhibition.

The provocative title declaring our current predicament is borrowed from Ron Terada’s sign work occupying the clerestory gallery. For over two decades, the Vancouver-based artist has been making primarily sculptures and paintings that originate in found texts.

In the English language, the word “headlinese” refers to a highly compressed, telegraphic form of writing that guides the way we receive our news stories, which today tend to arrive via the digital-screen format. At a time when our attention to screens is a highly sought-after commodity—measured by the amount of time spent on a website and the number of clicks made—headlines are of prime importance to news agencies.

TL; DR is a series of paintings featuring headlines generated from The Verge, an online tech-news source, and recasting them in the distinct font used by The New York Times. TL; DR is internet slang for “too long; didn’t read,” and Terada’s 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.

Ron Terada on WE DID THIS TO OURSELVES

Ron Terada, TL;DR, 2020-2022. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy the artist and Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver. Installation view: WE DID THIS TO OURSELVES, The Power Plant, Toronto, 2023. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid.

Ron Terada, WE DID THIS TO OURSELVES, 2023. Corrugated metal. Commissioned by The Power Plant. Courtesy the artist and Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid.

About the Artist

Ron Terada

Ron Terada (b. 1969, Vancouver; lives/works: Vancouver) has developed a wide-ranging conceptual art practice over more than two decades, which includes painting, photography, video, and music, as well as publications, posters, billboards, and signage. Terada is a graduate of the Emily Carr College of Art and Design.