Justin Chance and Hunter Foster at Gern en Regalia

Artists: Justin Chance, Hunter Foster

Exhibition title: Better

Venue: Gern en Regalia, New York, US

Date: August 9 – September 19, 2021

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Gern en Regalia, New York

Better, a two-person exhibition with works by Justin Chance and Hunter Foster explores notions of quality, value, judgement, competition and banality through use and reference towards craft, the archival and the administrative the artists’ second two-person exhibition together and first with the gallery.

Central to the Better’s framework are a pair of mirrored checkerboard-patterned latch-hooked wool rugs made by each artist titled “Ann Arbor” (Chance) and “things hidden since the foundation of the world.” (Foster). The first in an ongoing series and started in 2016, the rugs were made by the artists deciding on a standard unit of measure (7 x 7) and each privately selecting a color. An experiment in the possibilities of systems and constraints, the rugs emphasize a curiosity in process-based sculptures of the 1960s and ’70s and a return to craft movements and DIY aesthetics and values in the same era.

Regarding the motif of language, Dubbed (Chance, 2019-2021) is a quilt depicting ailing and dead parrots, notable for their ability to mime human language and communication. Foster’s series Minutes, wax and colored pencil drawings on archival file folders, references communications .

Foster’s framed photograph of a crop cricle researcher (Evidence (Self Portrait), 2021) and Chance’s standalone all-weather decal installed on the gallery’s storefront awning (Blue Ribbon 2021), represent the qualitative devoid of context and the intersections of the qualitative, mythology, information and advertising.

Contemplating the single, several, the random, the arbitrary, fact and fiction, value and shame, Better examines what surpasses, evades, requires and benefits from the absence of language.

Hunter Foster (b. 1993 Little Rock, Arkansas) lives and works in New Haven, CT. He completed his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2015) and is an MFA candidate at the Yale School of Art (expected 2023). His work has been included in two-person and group shows at Roots and Culture (Chicago), After School Special (Milwaukee), Threewalls (Chicago), and The Hills Esthetic Center (Chicago), and a one-person show at Good Weather. He is the co-founder of The Collaborative Center for Storm, Space & Seismic Research, an online and print publishing platform.

Justin Chance (b. 1993, New York, NY) is an artist, writer and co-founder of the Collaborative Center for Storm, Space & Seismic Research and has held solo exhibitions with Smart Objects, Los Angeles, CA and Tuesday, Richmond VA and has been included in group exhibitions with Downs & Ross, New York NY, tilling, Montreal CA, Ginny on Fredricks, London UK, Fonda, Leipzig, Germany; Housing, Miami, FL; Underground Flower at James River Park, Richmond, VA; Three Four Three Four, Brooklyn, NY; Gem en Regalia, New York, NY; Shoot the Lobster, New York, NY; Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York, NY; Lock Up International, London, United Kingdom; NY; Institute of Contemporary Art Baltimore, Baltimore, MD; Smart Objects, Los Angeles, CA; and May 2000, Chicago, IL. Chance holds a BA in Visual & Critical Studies and BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives and works in New York, NY.

Justin Chance, Hunter Foster, Better, 2021, exhibition view, Gern en Regalia, New York

Justin Chance, Blue Ribbon (Better), All weather decal installed on awning, 2021

Justin Chance, Ratings (Approved), Marker on 4-mil laminate, clear tape, 2021

Justin Chance, Dubbed, Wet needle, felted wool, silk, cotton, dye, quilted, 2019-202

Hunter Foster Pteridomania, Dyed canvas, house paint on wood, 2021

Hunter Foster Teen Spirit, Dyed canvas, enamel on wood, 2021

Justin Chance Child Chorus, Photograph taken by artist’s parents sometime between 1999 to 2008, mirrored glass, matting board, 2021

Hunter Foster Minutes (Curriculum), Colored pencil, wax, ink, post it notes on archival file hung on artist-made rack, 2021

Hunter Foster Minutes (Budget), Colored pencil, wax, ink on archival file, 2021

Hunter Foster Minutes (Idoltry), Colored pencil, dye, and post it notes on archival file, hung on artist-made rack 2020-2021

Hunter Foster, Evidence (Self-Portrait), Found photograph and archival file folder on museum board, framed, 2021

Hunter Foster, I Saw a Wheel Within a Wheel, Dyed canvas, thread oil on wood, 2019

Justin Chance, Clarence Thomas, Mirrorized terrarium tank, gravel, crushed glass, sand, synthetic aquarium plant life, bleached construction paper, denatured alcohol, graphite, stickers, horizontal shelving unit, 2021

Justin Chance, An Insurrection of the Heart, Mirrored glass, aquarium tank, gravel, crushed glass, sand, fish of various species named George Washington, light filter, Stress-coat, Stress Zyme, water, 2021