Light up wall decorations, picture frames and clocks are the hosts for Chadwick Rantanen’s unusual art project, which takes the form of adaptors that allow one battery to be used in place of another. With adaptors in the form of bees sticking out the back of this clock, the device is forced to keep its kitschy face to the wall. Resistance to tackiness and artistic innovation become the subject matter. (At Essex Street through May 16th).
Chadwick Rantanen’s new show, ‘Bins and Loops’ at the Lower East Side gallery ‘Essex Street’ pushes his materials like no other show up at the moment. Rantanen uses the hydrographic process, in which images are applied to produce surfaces via printed film, but stops short of applying the images, instead leaving them to float on the water’s surface in an abstract pattern that dramatically updates the idea of process art. (Through June 9th).
Chadwick Rantanen, ‘Bin,’ 11 polypropylene bin bottoms and 10 tops, hydrographic film, water, 2013.