Chance City, 2001-09
$32,404 worth of discarded "Scratch & Win" losing lottery tickets (no adhesive)
Approximately 7 ft h x 21 ft w x 10 ft d
Installation at Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2009
$24,496 worth of discarded “Scratch & Win” losing lottery tickets (no adhesive)
Approximately 8 ft h x 8 ft w x 6 ft d
Installation at Brooklyn Museum, New York, 2004
$17,119 worth of discarded “Scratch & Win” losing lottery tickets (no adhesive)
Installation at Caren Golden Gallery, New York, 2002
Chance City is made up of thousands of discarded scratch-and-win lottery tickets that have been arranged into an urban complex, constructed as a house of cards. Embodying the failed hopes of ordinary people, the worthless lottery tickets become building blocks for monumental, yet temporary structures. While no glue was used to make these towering and precariously-balanced edifices, they are sturdier than they look. The structures, literally held up by gravity and friction, are symbols of the American Dream representing how labor, money and resilience defy the odds of a fragile existence.
