By Elizabeth Shannon, Bass Museum of Art

According to Marcel Duchamp, “all artists are not chess players — all chess players are artists.” Visitors to Collins Park can now put this assertion to the test by playing chess on Miami-based artist Jim Drain’s newest work, Chess Tables (2014), located just off 22nd Street, opposite the Ballet School on Miami Beach. Drain’s work — accurately summarized by its title — consists of two chess tables, each accompanied by two chairs. The pieces were installed in the park shortly before the beginning of Art Basel in Miami Beach, as part of the Bass Museum of Art’s tc: temporary contemporary public art program. Made from hard-wearing steel tubing filled with terrazzo, the table tops feature the familiar layout of a chess board, while the chair seats are geometrically patterned in a way that plays upon the chess board’s classic design. Drain’s work is often colorful and highly patterned, and Chess Tables is no exception. The tables are given an additional chromic splash when the bright chess pieces chosen by the artist are placed onto the tables’ surfaces.

Jim Drain’s Chess Tables (2014) Photo: Valerie Ricordi

Drain’s Chess Tables fit into a long-standing engagement between art and chess. There are numerous depictions of people playing chess, dating back to the Middle Ages, with chess utilized as an allegory for love, as well as a familiar metaphor for politics and war. In literature, Lewis Carroll’s Alice famously becomes embroiled in a game of chess in Through the Looking-Glass (1871), while the protagonist of Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal (1957) is forced to play chess with Death in an attempt to win his life. Artists — Drain included — often also enjoy playing the game, with Duchamp, who was a semi-professional player for around a decade, as probably the most famous exponent. Duchamp shared his passion for chess with his fellow artists Man Ray and Francis Picabia, and all three incorporated chess-based themes and iconography into their artwork. However, Duchamp undoubtedly took the game most seriously, needing, according to his friend Henri-Pierre Rochê, “a good chess game like a baby needs his bottle.”

Jim Drain’s Chess Tables (2014) Photo: Liz Shannon

Outdoor chess tables are a feature of many public parks, such as Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass., Tompkins Square Park in New York City, and the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. These famous examples inspired Drain to create his own chess tables for Collins Park, although none of these celebrated public spaces can boast chess tables that are also works by an internationally-renowned contemporary artist. Chess Tables are both artworks and functional objects: once people begin to use these tables, they become ‘activated’.

Jim Drain’s Chess Tables (2014) Photo: Augusto Mendoza

While the presence of Chess Tables in Collins Park will hopefully bring chess players much enjoyment, people unfamiliar with the game can still enjoy them by playing checkers instead, or even using the tables to eat lunch. Both chess and checker pieces are available from the front desk at the Bass during museum opening hours, in exchange for a form of ID. We encourage you to come enjoy a game.