Chess set exhibition opens in Bendigo, Australia

Chess news and chess trivia blog (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2010

A Marcel Duchamp chess set

Hi Everyone,

Just the other day we told you about this chess set exhibition opening in Bendigo, Australia. Well, here is a nice article we found on it.

"The game of chess is traditionally perceived as a subdued, cerebral and introspective activity," curator Tansy Curtin writes in the catalogue for this exhibition.

The show is, in fact, two distinct exhibitions in separate gallery spaces at Bendigo. The first is a travelling exhibition from RS&A, a London-based art commissioning company that in 2003 invited artists to ponder the game. Artists included Tracey Emin, Yayoi Kusama, Damien Hirst and Maurizio Cattelan. Each reimagined the possibilities of the traditional chess board, with Jake and Dinos Chapman, for example, designing a set populated by "post-apocalyptic adolescents."

To complement the London project, called The Art of Chess, Bendigo has commissioned 13 Australian artists. The result is Your Move: Australian Artists Play Chess, an exhibition that will tour other Australian cities next year.

It features works by Danie Mellor, Lionel Bawden, Sebastian Di Mauro, Emily Floyd, Sally Smart and others.

Among them is a joint work by Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, whose chess set is made up of beer bottles representing the main players in World War I. A hammer sits alongside the board, ready to destroy pieces as they are taken.

For artists in both exhibitions, proficiency in chess was not mandatory. Even some of the curators had only a cursory interest in the game. Julia Royse, one of the directors of RS&A, says her inspiration was "more art than chess".

"None of us really play," she says. "We all know how to play, but it's not a big part of our lives."

Meanwhile, we also found this very nice artwork at this link. However, we couldn't locate any other details.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com