Ron Terada: Art On The Move

Locust Projects announces that artist Ron Terada (b. 1969, Vancouver) has been selected to create a new commissioned work for Art on the Move, part of an ongoing public commissions initiative, by the project’s guest curator Dominic Molon, Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island.

Terada, a Vancouver-based artist, uses text and various forms of institutional and cultural communication such as signs, posters, and soundtrack albums to create works that are distinctly personal and biographical though seemingly detached. His two- part project for Art on the Move continues his ongoing series, Soundtrack for an exhibition (begun in 2000), and comprises a free, limited-edition album available at Locust Projects including songs of subjective importance for Terada, and taxi tops featuring the titles of the songs on the album in English and Spanish.

The albums suggest a sense of movement from the gallery, through the streets, and into the homes of audience members around the Miami area while prompting consideration of how the function of “soundtracks” in films to establish a tone and atmosphere within which the protagonists fictionally exist might be translated into both art and everyday situations.

Displacing the album’s evocative titles onto the taxi tops with no indication of their rationale or context, creates both a disruptive dissonance with the expected information on those structures – typically advertisements for strip clubs or legal aid – and a reminder of the way that popular music affects us in the least expected and often public places.

Terada ofter draws from past art historical figures and popular culture to recreate something new in his works using a range of media including books, painting, photography, video, sound and graphic design.