CHADWICK RANTANEN: "A Picture Of A Garden Cannot Be Use To Prevent That Garden's Manufacture"

24 Jun - 23 Jul 2016 STANDARD (OSLO)
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Press release

STANDARD (OSLO)

PRESS RELEASE

 

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CHADWICK RANTANEN

"A PICTURE OF A GARDEN CANNOT BE USED TO PREVENT THAT GARDEN'S MANUFACTURE"

24.06.-23.07.2016 / Preview: Friday 24.06.2016 / 19.00-21.00

 

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STANDARD (OSLO) is proud to announce an exhibition of new works by Chadwick Rantanen.

 

"Novelty is that which can be discarded. Inessential even to that which is kitch, petty and disenfranchised. The novel panders for 'just a moment of your time' seizing the body in a pose of appreciation while merely hawking sensory readjustment. Not only are you occupied by novelty but you become its advertisement. The multicolored, blinking lights are internalized becoming a tolerable agitation. An invisible rash.

 

A product is a proposal. If it proposes illumination and you can indeed see light, it is most certainly working. Or at least operating. The circuit and battery asserts novelties dumb magic, its wasteful faux self sufficiency. Adapting any object for another purpose is a specific breed of problem solving. It is a weak space of innovation. A stopgap. A process of carving out space where there should be none. Wedging open and embedding in. Not of a process of claiming new territory.

 

An adaptor does not ask for compromise but takes this burden upon itself. An adaptor is not used to create new function but to transition between standards. This distinguishes 'adaption', a process of fusion and an 'adaptor' as an object: The adaptor lets its keepers be. It respects their position and does not try to change it, happy to mediate. As you were."

 

- Chadwick Rantanen

 

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Chadwick Rantanen lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include "Five Bars of Deal" at Essex Street, New York; "Benton Beach House, The Sullivans, Mary's Getaway, Connor Lake House, Carol's Cabin, Etc..." at Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; and "M*A*S*H" with Calvin Marcus at C L E A R I N G, Brussels. His works have also appeared in group exhibitions at Sculpture Center, New York; Overduin and Co, Los Angeles; United Artists, Marfa; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; and 356 South Mission Road, Los Angeles. Throughout the course of the exhibition his works can be seen in "The Peacock" at Grazer Kunstverein in Graz, Austria.

 

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Installation photography: Vegard Kleven

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