Trong Gia Nguyen (US)

Trong Gia Nguyen’s work pits two individuals who will channel the spirits of the two masters, Bobby Fisher and Marcel Duchamp, to play a friendly game of chess. The first two duels took place in New York over the summer, with Duchamp winning one match and the second ending in a draw. The third and final match culminates at Dwarf Gallery on October 14.

Chess is the binding “medium” between Fischer, the former world champion and temperamental exile who passed away earlier this year, and Duchamp, who once played for the French national team. Fischer was an American who became Icelandic out of necessity. Duchamp was a Frenchman who became an American because he could. Fischer hated Bush. Duchamp probably would have hated Bush too. Fischer was a grandmaster and the only American to win the official World Chess Championship in the 20th century, having defeated Boris Spassky in a match held in Reykjavík thirty-three years ago. Duchamp was also a grandmaster of sorts in the Priory of Sion, as Nguyen asserts in his recently completed “lost chapter” to The Da Vinci Code.

Confounding the space-time-art continuum, Marcel Duchamp Versus Bobby Fischer looks at another dimension of perception.

Actor / visual artist Tómas Lemarquis will be participating in the performance.

Trong Gia Nguyen is a visual artist, curator, writer and art critic. He has produced the art space New General Catalogue in Brooklyn, writes about art for several art magazines, and his works have been presented widely, such as at the Istanbul Biennial, Havana Biennial, Performa05 (The Performance Biennial) in New York, Fruit & Flower Deli Gallery (NY), ISE Foundation (NY), Goff + Rosenthal Gallery in Berlin, Tenri Cultural Institute (NY), Bronx Museum of the Arts (NY), Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn (NY), and Safn a contemporary art museum in Reykjavík.