Alternative chess 

Editor: This drawing is called "Alternative chess" by Anima Ehtiat. It features a classic chessboard, but instead of chess pieces, we find various abstract symbols. The simple lines create a curious, almost playful mood. What strikes you about this piece? Curator: The most interesting aspect to me is the re-presentation of labor and game. We think about the history of chess, an aristocratic pursuit. This work undermines it using basic drawing, a de-skilled labor in the artistic context. Editor: I see what you mean. The artist seems to be levelling the playing field by stripping away the complexity and exclusivity often associated with both chess and art. But is that the real playing field with the symbols? Are they a commentary of game logic? Curator: Exactly. These elementary symbols – almost like industrial design notations– displace any skill in playing chess, yet echo an industrial aesthetic in terms of the mass-produced chess set, which could also question the authorship of this art. This could be machine generated! Editor: So you're saying that by using such simple and universal symbols, the artist critiques the commodity form of chess? It isn't about a painting, sculpture but of art and play as mass culture? Curator: Precisely. The value here isn’t in skill or virtuosity but in how labor and its product—the game and the artwork—can be demystified through basic mark making. The meaning emerges from this relationship, from this act of representing labor and how labor is viewed.. Editor: I never thought about the connection between the means of production and such an artwork, but now I have something new to look for.