CHADWICK RANTANEN

Michael Benevento is proud to present a solo exhibition of new works by Chadwick Rantanen. This is Rantanen’s first solo presentation since joining the gallery in 2022. 

The acoustic guitar is fine as it is; it need not be improved. And yet, Kaman Industries took the knowledge acquired from eliminating unwanted vibrations in helicopter blades and applied it to the vibrations in a guitar body, re-engineered in parabolic plastic instead of wood. A military industrial musical instrument born of restless, corporate diversification.

The Kaman Corporation develops products and technologies within the aerospace, defense, and medical industries and is unique among its competitors for its foray into guitar design. Highly diversified corporations make countless decisions, mainly to maintain control rather than out of passion. They turn to building ecosystems of design and manufacturing. Building worlds instead of building-within-this-world.

Aesthetics is usually not a problem to be solved. Decorative concerns are inconsequential in engineering. But when a certain kind of ‘look’ must be decided for the sake of world-building, strange cross-pollination occurs. Aesthetics fold back into engineering; contaminations of adjacency tend to appear: wood made to look like leaves, a rock made of sand. Design is shot through, chewed a little too long, leaving a contrivance that merely tips its hat to the rich culture and history that it renders in plastics. 

In plants, cleistogamy occurs in response to crisis or a loss of resources. Their flowers never open. Instead, they turn in on themselves. Ligature is only possible when something does the opposite: reaches out and opens up. Ligature operates within a small spectrum of textural latitude, preferring roughness over smoothness. An object's ‘patina' (Latin: "a shallow dish”) fills up by disintegrating and accruing. That which is worn has lost a part of itself and acquired some aspects of the things around it. These worn things have proven their ability to merge, even create sympathy. Yet, that which is closed, sterile and unambiguous may also care, despite its dour presence.