ART-PRESENTATION: Checkmate

The group exhibition “Checkmate. Games of International Art from the Sixties to Now” plays on multiple significances, starting from its title, which could refer to a checkered board, a grid that the artist uses to organise intuition within the parameters of language; or a chessboard, where strategies come together to confront viewers.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Cortesi Gallery Archive

The group exhibition explores relationships between works from the ‘50s and the ‘70s to the present day. The narrative’s point of departure begins with two works from 2007, “Zeusi e Parrasio” by Giulio Paolini in open dialogue with “Points of View” by Tony Cragg that are installed along a diagonal that cuts through the gallery space. Ambiguity leads the game played in the exhibition: from Joseph Kosuth’s “Art as Idea as Idea” (1967) to Alighiero Boetti’s “Uno, cento, mille” (1979), where the alphabet has been crossed out with blue pen strokes and the only traces left are commas, which give space to the intuition of the untold. In direct dialogue with these two works is Heinz Mack’s metaphysic landscape “Orizzonte+Piramide” (1972), an aluminium board where a pyramid based on the horizon points to another, further away, in a conceptual game of references. The post-spatialist and kinetic works featured in the exhibition play with the senses in a similar way: Enrico Castellani’s “Superficie” (1987), an alternation of shadow and light, the reticular painting “Piccola Premura” (1962-63) by Piero Dorazio, which brings up all the hues of orange and blue and Jesús Rafael Soto’s “Purpura y plata” (1969), where a flat, solid red painted field is presented in stark contrast with a vibrating grid of aluminium. The exhibition features works by: Alberto Biasi, Alighiero Boetti, Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Castellani, Tony Cragg, Piero Dorazio, Tano Festa, Lucio Fontana, Joseph Kosuth, Heinz Mack, Giulio Paolini, Jesús-Rafael Soto, Grazia Varisco.

 Info: Curator: Ilaria Bignotti, Cortesi Gallery, 41 & 43 Maddox Street, London, Duration: 21/9-30/11/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 12:00-18:00, www.cortesigallery.com