Posted on March 20, 2015
Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin, L’Echiqueté (Checkered Chess), 2012. Pieces and chessboard. Photo: Olive Martin.
The Belgian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale will present the work of Push Play artists Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin, as part of the project by Belgian artist Vincent Meessen. Meesen’s proposal, selected to represent Belgium at the Biennale, opposes the pavillion’s traditional representation by solo or duo exhibitions by Belgian artists. Titled Personne et les autres, the project rather presents a thematic group exhibition, organized by Meessen in collaboration with curator Katerina Gregos, and includes works by selected group of international artists including L’Echiqueté, 2012, by Bernier and Martin.
The work L’Echiqueté, included in the ICI exhibition Push Play, is a variant of the game of chess, whereby during play the pawns are not captured from the playing board, but rather change color from black or white into black and white. According to the website Normal:
“This complex work is an inventive and sophisticated comment on the hybridity and cross-mixing engendered by colonial relations and encounters, and will be accompanied by a tapestry and two photographs.”
The work will be on view in Belgian Pavillion at the Venice Biennale through November 22, 2015.
To read the full description, visit the Normal‘s website, here.