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Jancar Jones Gallery

July 16 - August 15, 2010

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965 Mission Suite 120 San Francisco, CA 94103
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Chadwick Rantanen
Opening Friday, July 16th, 6-9pm The Jancar Jones Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibit of new work by Los Angeles-based artist Chadwick Rantanen. The exhibit will include two telescoping poles (one inside and one outside the gallery), a number of wall- mounted, sandblasted sheets of glass and a selection of photographs of sand. This new work furthers his interrogation of domestic spaces into that of corporate and institutional space, décor and design. These projects focus on the creation of cyclical systems between structure and it’s decoration utilizing corporate designs tendency to control feelings by minimizing negative emotions. This will be his second solo exhibit with the gallery. The telescopic poles attempt to remove the relationship of subject to décor by wrapping the two into a single object. They masquerade as limitless, existing at any scale, in any space, impeded only by the room they occupy but, in reality, they have limits and are merely ‘built to suit most applications’. They fake expansiveness by never existing in a room that they don’t physically fit into. When they do fit, they touch the ceiling and floor only with rubber feet, remaining separate and leaving no mark; using only enough pressure to stay in place. Their temporary passing is made easy on the structures they spend time in. They are set up like a piece of gear and need assistance, like an invalid. Once set up, the poles are decorated making them far more palatable. This is their excuse to be there. The designs give you something to look at which, sooner or later, brings your thoughts back to their own structure by combining with it or mimicking it. In his wall mounted glass pieces, the colored glass creates ’space’ to look at or, more specifically, an inch of space off the white wall they are bolted to. This space is empty except for the surface texture of the wall and a stuttering shadow of the imaged glass. Here, colored glass commonly used in corporate, commercial settings is imaged with nothing but an additional framing device sandblasted into the surface; all held in place by more framing devices in the form of wall clamps. The imaged frame contains three decorative circles mimicking the three wall clamps each in different orientations tumbling over one another yet, managing to hold the glass in a consistent position through bracing and balance. The subject of the Untitled series of framed photographs is sand. Sand is photographed because nothing else could be. Sand is not wanted it merely provides the most dissonance while remaining simple and elemental. It suits an active avoidance of photographic tropes asserting what it is not more than what it is. These images are not stock photography but almost ready for a logo or catchphrase. Not plain enough to be a background but not complicated enough to be an ‘image’. Not black and white but barely color; and not too big. Here, the traditional matte is raised allowing the viewer a glimpse beyond its edges. This slight fissure reveals, not an infrastructure of support but a surplus of content: MORE sand. This undercurrent dissipates as it spreads and what was once an image gently falls from that category. Grains of sand mix with grains of celluloid mix with the papers grainy texture; another dissonance created by image and material. This process unfolds with proximity: as you approach, the traditional photograph increases in detail while losing all specificity. A choice has been made but, at the same time, you see other possibilities, other information, other choices. Chadwick Rantanen received his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles and his BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His work has most been exhibited at Artists Space in New York, Homie Gallery in Berlin, and Jancar Jones Gallery and Southern Exposure in San Francisco, amongst others. Gallery hours: Thursday – Saturday, noon – 6pm and by appointment.