Conférence - le Fou, le Roi, et la Reine - Marcel Duchamp et les jeux d'échecs

By Sophie BERNAL.

In 1923, having just completed his major work Le Grand Verre, Marcel Duchamp announced that he was giving up art to devote himself to chess.

History proved him wrong, but the chess theme remained omnipresent in his work, first as a pictorial motif (Partie d'échecs, 1910, Les Joueurs d'échecs, 1911, Le Roi et la Reine entourés de Nus vites, 1912...) then as a trope for understanding the world around him. Coded messages, chess tournaments, giant outdoor games...

This talk looks back at Duchamp's and his contemporaries' interest in this activity between leisure and strategy, a powerful metaphor for games of class, gender and power.

This lecture is free for Pass-M SOLO, Pass-M DUO and Pass-M Jeune members.