ICFF 2024: Process Readymades

ICFF 2024: Process Readymades

Joseph Starr - May 16, 2024

ICFF’s satellite exhibit “Wanted: Look Book” aspires to connect members of the A&D community with designers/makers/entrepreneurs who may have flown under the radar. The innovative work of Charles Grantham provides a nice case-in-point.

Brass and Ebony ring object
These are experimental pieces that engage the marriage of disparate materials in unusual forms and unorthodox sizes. The above demonstrates a fusion of Brass and Macassar Ebony in a micro iteration that’s 3”L x 1.5”w x 3”H. Here’s another in Oxidized Oak and Brass.
Process Readymades Oxidized Oak and Brass
Grantham has a particular interest in plywood. Likening his work to Duchamp’s Readymades and the elevation of process over product, he aspires to alter our perceptions about the nature of “mundane” materials: “By keeping the manufacturing process the same while altering the materials, the process rather than the object becomes the readymade. The result is a handmade object which is simultaneously familiar yet totally different… a new material with its own unique structural and aesthetic properties.”
Overhead view of Ebony/Macassar ring
Here’s an example of how Grantham translates his ideas into a full-flown functional object—a smallish yet pragmatic furnishing that evinces the very same process used to create the micro-works, made of Walnut plywood and fused brass.
Desk detail
Process Readymades detail
Working out of his Red Hook studio, Grantham is currently pursuing a patent for “work that has resulted in a wholly original material with unique structural and aesthetic properties.” Find out more at ICFF’s Wanted: Look Book, May 19-21. And read more about Process Readymades here.

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