Canadian Art Gallery Hop: Saturday, 17 September, 3PM
Using photography, video, installation and signage, Xu Zhen (Shanghai) and Ron Terada (Vancouver) draw our attention to the mostly unnoticed and dismissed trivial details of everyday life, like the linguistic goofiness or visual puns of street signs, the ridiculousness of clichéd expressions, and pranks. They highlight the humour that can often be found in random encounters, or in situations that are manipulated to upset the order of the banal. Considering issues of viewer and audience expectation and reaction, in both subtle and obvious ways, their approaches are a blend of calculated provocation and buffoonery.
16 September—22 October 2005
Xu Zhen, Ron Terada
Monkey Work Coconut
Information
Xu Zhen lives and works in Shanghai. Xu Zhen's work has appeared in seminal exhibitions in Shanghai including: Art for Sale, Shanghai Plaza (1999); Uncooperative Approach (Fuck Off); and Useful Life, (2000). His work has also been included in group exhibitions in China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the USA, and the Venice Biennale (2005, 2001) and Shanghai Biennale (2004).
Ron Terada lives and works in Vancouver. His solo exhibitions and projects include: Art Gallery of Windsor (Fall 2005); Catalogue, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2003); Defile, Art Metropole, Toronto (2003); and Present Tense, Art Gallery of Ontario (1998). His work has appeared in group exhibitions including: General Idea, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (Fall 2005); Baja to Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery (2004); Soundtracks, Edmonton Art Gallery (2003); the Prague Biennale (2003); Art Music: Rock, Pop, Techno, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2001); and the Melbourne International Biennale (1999). Terada is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver.