I have always been deeply impressed by the fragile status of the king in a game of chess. Its restricted movements and slow advances across the chessboard reveal the inertia dictated by the protection fence built around him by the royal retinue. It is precisely the king’s attendance, however, that justifies this unique army constituted by pairs of pieces – except pawns, eight of them in all, which elbow their way on the chessboard screen as they resolutely advance forward and eventually move sideways to capture and serve as exchangeable currency for both, attack and defense –, and the queen, a piece as solitary as the king, which unlike the latter moves swiftly in any direction. In this royal couple, despite the queen boasting vigor and suppleness, the king validates her attendance as well as the attendance of all other pieces in this game played by two opponents, each controlling an army, one light and the other dark. The player with light pieces starts the game with an opening move (either the indefatigable Queen’s Pawn Opening, 1.d4, or the King’s Pawn Opening, 1.e4, among other opening variations), an attack countered with an equally obvious and natural defense, given that, in the early part of the game, moves are predictable and fairly predetermined. Then the fragile balance achieved by interpenetrating and clashing forces, the invisible fabric woven by game moves made into threads, becomes frayed. At this point, experience offers players a glimpse of the game sequence and intuition offers players a mental picture of the game moves of his/her partner-opponent. “Partner,” because one does not play chess alone; and “opponent,” because chess is a game of measuring forces, one in which victory and defeat are engendered through a scheme of strategic moves, tentative paths through which players attempt to checkmate the opponent’s king.
Games incorporate and prefigure human interactions, themselves games people play. Is it necessary to insist on this point? Beth Moysés claims it is. In fact, her artistic career has been drawn up as an inventory and analysis of a private game, the originator of all games: the man-woman relationship.
In her previous paintings/objects, the artist created metaphors using the bridal gown, this immemorial fetish propped on the notion of purity, a receptacle of substantial affective investment, fantasy, and idealization. While focusing love relationships and the spectrum of heartbreak, trauma, myth, and their related rites, the artist entered deeper and more awry discussions, as shown in this exhibition.
Before addressing the king-queen relationship that the artist presents in the larger installation, let us start looking at her awe-inspiring initiative to set up a live-size chess game in the gallery space. As a contention of mental skills, chess renders a silent dispute between two individuals, each moving pieces in agreement to game strategies aimed at securing victory, or at least a stalemate, for himself. Within the confines of this quadrangular territory divided into 64 squares of identical size across which opponents move their pieces according to strict rules, the king is by far the most restrained character. Most certainly, this is not our idea of a king; indeed, historically, motionlessness has not been a characteristic trait of the male figure. Heroes such as Ulysses, Hercules, Lancelot, and even monotonous Sisyphus were assigned continuous exertions. Men moved linearly across the territory to hunt and conquer, whereas women were assigned the circularity of household chores and expectation, needlework on their lap.
Beth Moysés’s immaculately white queen stands alone on the equally white chessboard. The suppression of black pieces and chessboard squares denotes the existence of another game within the game. The queen’s white figure has been hollowed out in such a way that the hollow space renders a reduced version of the king’s silhouette. The king’s figure traverses the queen’s figure: it is the absence, the part of the queen’s body that has been violently removed and is kept in the distance, as denoted by its smaller dimensions. As the queen moves, she takes the king along; he is her mobile mate.
On a day of June 2000, one hundred wedding ceremonies were held at Carandirú, the unfortunately renowned São Paulo prison that is also the largest in Brazil. On the occasion, one hundred brides headed for the penitentiary where her future husbands were imprisoned. Upon arrival, they carefully put on makeup and dressed as majestically as their modest white gowns permitted. Deeply touched, they received a group blessing, exchanged wedding bands with their beloved grooms, and kissed them with eyes tightly shut. Then, merrily and still deeply touched, they ate their wedding cake, posed for photographs, and received best wishes from others in attendance. Finally, they kissed their grooms goodbye, changed back into ordinary clothing, and left alone the immense and inhospitable penal complex where their new husbands remained locked up. Alone, several of them walked to the bus stop where, bridal bouquet in hand and the chilly winter wind biting their face, they stood patiently waiting for the bus that would take them back to their loneliness. Every week after that, the brides returned for a love dispensed ever so sparingly in anxiously awaited encounters that their mates, out of uncommon gentleness (given the abrupt suppression of their movements), cherish with unsurpassable love and fidelity.
Agnaldo Farias
March 2001