Phantom Galleries LA, partnered with the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency, are pleased to present The Fortune Cookie Project, an installation by Los Angeles-based artist Christopher Reynolds.

A fortune cookie writer assumes the role of provider of thoughts, challenges, inspiration, and even humor — a role that an artist adopts in many occasions.  After posting an advertisement on Craigslist, Reynolds selected a diverse group of people to share stories about the impact of fortune cookies on their lives. They ultimately formed a community who ranged from couples and children to business owners and artists. In addition to taking portraits of his participants, Reynolds played the role of fortune writer and drafted each personʼs fortune based on their stories and personal history. The end result is a fortune that is both unique and generic — a familiar trait of the famous cookie. Once written, these nine new fortunes were mass-produced for distribution to the public to inspire an entirely new group of people. A larger, extended community consisting of the photographed subjects and fortune cookie eaters all become the projectʼs active participants rather than its observers.

The Fortune Cookie Project consists of nine large format photographs containing a fortune written below each subject. A large bowl of the artist-written fortune cookies are displayed in front of the nine images and are free to visitors.

The exhibition will be on view from February 13th through March 13th, 2010. Please contact the gallery for hours because they are subject to change. Private viewing is available by appointment.

For further information, images, or to make an appointment, please call: 949.887.4065 or email: crey01@aol.com.