Canada and Beyond: A Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural Studies

Abstract

This paper focuses on the language-based work of Vancouver artist Ron Terada, who has turned the ephemera of exhibitions--posters, titles and advertising--into the very substance of some of his projects. Much of his work exploits the economic structures on which the art world relies. Perhaps most audaciously, his exhibition Catalogue at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver in 2003 put the printed support at the very heart of the show. The names and logos of the sponsors for Terada’s project were all that appeared on the walls and windows of the gallery. In essence, the catalogue was the show. Terada is perhaps best known internationally for his appropriation of public signage. The replication and relocation of the highway sign “ENTERING CITY OF VANCOUVER” into an art gallery wittily stakes a Terada claim in what has been referred to as “the Vancouver School” of artists.  At the same time, the sign alludes to the distortions generated by cultural compartmentalization in parochial narratives of Canadian art and literature and implicitly questions the validity of defining art by region in a globalized world.