The Loser Show by Laura Quattrocchi

Opening Reception: August 30, 6-9pm
Talk: TBA

The Loser Show is the latest installation in this ongoing body of work by artist Laura Quattrocchi. Blending sculpture, performance, and community engagement, Quattrocchi transforms discarded lottery tickets into poignant reflections on hope, chance, and loss.

Much of Quattrocchi’s creative practice navigates human nature through the lens of found objects and acts of gathering. She collects overlooked fragments of daily life, reassembling them into artworks that illuminate our social systems, emotional desires, and the traces we leave behind. Her practice bridges personal narrative and subtly touches social critique, revealing how everyday materials carry hidden stories about value, aspiration, and human connection.

What began in 2013 as a simple act of collecting discarded scratch-off tickets evolved into a decade-long investigation spanning neighborhoods in Jersey City and Detroit. The Loser Show exposes the deep emotional, economic, and sometimes addictive stakes hidden in everyday gestures of gambling. It also alludes to how state-run systems of chance disproportionately target low-income communities. Through thousands of gathered, torn, and even preserved tickets and stubs, the project invites viewers to consider the energy and dreams bound up in each small, scrap of paper. Through Quattrocchi’s work figments of personal loss assemble into a powerful shared narrative where many private hopes become a massive record of loss and collective memory.

“I asked people to ‘Bring me their Losers.’ I heard many stories. The idea of the exhibition slowly formed. The loser ticket holds your energy, your hope to win. Only assembled together does this energy manifest itself in its power, like a mirror—a place where we can experience our shared vulnerability.” -L.Q.

About the Artist

Laura Quattrocchi ( b. 1972, Padua, Italy ) is a multidisciplinary artist working with movement, Installation, sculpture, video, and performance. She moved to NYC in 1995 to study contemporary dance and then to Detroit in 2016. Quattrocchi's practice reflects on her perception of her surrounding world, particularly human habits and waste. She works in any media that serves the concept of the piece, often mixing performance and object making. Her process can be very long, sometimes taking a decade to develop.

Central to her dance development involved meeting and working with Daniel Lepkoff, Elaine Summers, Karl Anderson, and Joshua Bisset. She discovered her interest in visual arts and fabrication after collaborating with visual artists Diego Britt, Sylvestre Gobart and Agata Oleksiak. In 2000 she joined Shua Group founded by Joshua Bisset. Her individual visual and performance works have been presented at venues including The Newark Museum, The Queens Museum, The American Visionary Arts Museum, The Jersey City Museum, Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Detroit Contemporary, The Harn Museum of Art, ShuaSpace, and The Gateway Project in Newark. Laura has performed as a dancer with David Parker and The Bang Group, Mary Anthony Dance Theatre, Tam Le, Kun-Yang Lin, Andrea Haenggi, Elaine Summers, Jody Oberfelder. She was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in 2016 by New Jersey State Council of the Arts in the category of interdisciplinary performance for her work Spring Rain. She is also one of the chosen artists representing New Jersey in the 2014 Newark Museum Arts Biennial. She is one of the founding member of a community space called Andy in Detroit. @lauraquattrocchi