Saturday, March 11, 2006

Marcel Duchamp and Chess


This special limited-edition booklet, as indicated on this site is out of stock, discusses the historical background and clandestine controversy surrounding Duchamp and Halberstadt's rare and esoteric book, Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled (1932) and includes two freshly annotated games of Duchamp -- one being his defeat of world champion Alekhine in a consultation game that is missing from the recently published definitive collection of Alekhine's games by Skinner and Verhoeven.
The artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) was obsessed with chess throughout his live. Art critics and Duchamp scholars have deeply analyzed his artistic oeuvre in dozens of books and hundreds of articles, but few have truly understood the role of chess in his life and art. Chess permeated his life as intensly as did art, yet most critics treat his chess as a passing phase. I suggest the reason for their bafflement is that they were not serious chess players and have no first hand knowledge of the chess wold. Very few masters have ever analyzed Duchamp's chess in relation to his art and none have made a detailed study. Herein lies a very small sampler, derived from my forthcoming definitive book on the subject. This appetizer will focus primarily on the sole chess book he authored and also include a few of his special games. It is meant to whet the palate and to peak the reader's interest in this iconoclastic artist who made many contributions to chess that have gone unrecognized. [ Excerpt from page 1 ]

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