Chris Barnabe

I have played a lot of chess. Looking at patterns on top of patterns. There’s a certain geometry to the game. Looking for lines, for alignments: horizontals, verticals and diagonals and they are constantly being reshaped, reformed, reassessed. Most of this takes place in the imagination. I wonder about connections, iteration after iteration. What if I do this? Or what if this instead? I wonder about placement, about how something fits. I also make a lot of mistakes. Chess is impermanent, fleeting, ephemeral - art leaves a record of your imperfections and foibles.

Duchamp gave up art to play chess. I’m trying to give up chess to play art.

p.s. for a wonderful twist on the game (both games?) check out Yoko’s chess set.