Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Queen Stripped Bare By Her Bishops, Even

As part of a bid for self-improvement, I have recently made a (very likely doomed) effort to improve my chess game. In my research I came across this gem: a record of all the public chess games played by Marcel Duchamp.


"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 personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists."
–––––
"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."
––Marcel Duchamp

(PS - if anyone plays Words With Friends or Chess With Friends, my nom de plume is "Raptor St. Cannon" ––R)

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