©2016 DOROTHEA TANNING, VEGAP/THE DESTINA FOUNDATION, NEW YORK
Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday.
Today’s show: “Endgame: Duchamp, Chess, and the Avant-Garde” is on view at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona through Sunday, January 22. The group exhibition, curated by Manuel Segade, “re-reads the history of modern art through the lens of its relationship to chess,” according to the press release. It includes work by such artists as Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Man Ray, Sonia Delaunay, Jean Metzinger, and George Maciunas.
A choice excerpt, included in the press materials, from Duchamp himself on chess:
Now I am content to just play.
I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art – and much
more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in
its social position. The chess pieces are the block alphabet which
shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual
design on the chess board, express their beauty abstractly, like a
poem. […] I have come to the conclusion that while all artists are
not chess players, all chess players are artists.
–Marcel Duchamp. Address at the banquet
of the New York State Chess Association in 1952
01
Marcel Duchamp, La Partie d’échecs (The Chess Game), 1910, oil on canvas.
©2016 MARCEL DUCHAMP, VEGAP/PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART, THE LOUISE AND WALTER ARENSBERG COLLECTION, 1950
Jean Metzinger, Le Soldat à la partie d’échecs (Soldier at a Game of Chess), ca. 1915–16, oil on canvas.
©2016 JEAN METZINGER, VEGAP/DAVID AND ALFRED SMART MUSEUM OF ART, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, GIFT OF JOHN L. STRAUSS, JR. IN MEMORY OF HIS FATHER, JOHN L. STRAUSS
Sonia Delaunay, Les Robes simultanées (Trois femmes, formes et couleurs) (Simultaneous Dresses [Three Women, Forms, Colors]), 1925, oil on canvas.
MUSEO THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA, MADRID
Muriel Streeter, The Chess Queens, 1944, oil on canvas.
ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART, HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, GIFT OF DAVID E. AUSTIN
Mercè Rodoreda, Untitled (Composition IX), 1954, gouache on paper.
©2016 MERCÈ RODOREDA, VEGAP/FAMÍLIA BORRÀS-GRAS
René Magritte, Le Géant (The Giant), 1937, argentic photograph.
©2016 RENÉ MAGRITTE, VEGAP/COURTESY GALERIE BRACHOT, BRUSSELS/PRIVATE COLLECTION
Man Ray, Échiquier surréaliste (Surrealist Chessboard), 1934, collage of gelatin silver print.
©2016 MAN RAY, VEGAP/THE VERA AND ARTURO SCHWARZ COLLECTION OF DADA AND SURREALIST ART IN THE ISRAEL MUSEUM, JERUSALEM
Dorothea Tanning, Chess Tournament at the Julien Levy Gallery, 6th January, 1945, collage with three photographs taken by Julien Levy.
©2016 DOROTHEA TANNING, VEGAP/THE DESTINA FOUNDATION, NEW YORK
Takako Saito and George Maciunas, Spice Chess, 1966, 16 bottles with black corks, 16 bottles with white corks containing spices, and 64 transparent bottles.
©2016 TAKAKO SAITO, VEGAP/©2016 GEORGE MACIUNAS, VEGAP/COURTESY OF FONDAZIONE BONOTTO, MOLVENA, ITALY
Max Ernst, Chess Set, 1944, maple and nutwood.
©2016 MAX ERNST, VEGAP/MAX ERNST MUSEUM BRÜHL DES LVR, PRIVATE COLLECTION
Josef Hartwig, Bauhaus-Schachspiel (Modell I) (Bauhaus Chess Set [Model I]), 2007, re-edition of the original chess set from 1923.
MUSEU DEL JOGUET DE CATALUNYA, FIGUERES
Michel Aubry, L’Échiquier (The Chessboard), 2000, painted wood, two reeds.
COLLECTION FRAC DES PAYS DE LA LOIRE, CARQUEFOU, FRANCE
Installation view of "Endgame: Duchamp, Chess and the Avant-Garde," 2016, at the Fundació Joan Miró.
PERE PRATDESABA
Installation view of "Endgame: Duchamp, Chess and the Avant-Garde," 2016, at the Fundació Joan Miró.
PERE PRATDESABA
Installation view of "Endgame: Duchamp, Chess and the Avant-Garde," 2016, at the Fundació Joan Miró.
PERE PRATDESABA
Installation view of "Endgame: Duchamp, Chess and the Avant-Garde," 2016, at the Fundació Joan Miró.
PERE PRATDESABA