Hidden Chess Career of Marcel Duchamp How Art Imitates Chess

By Özer Mumcu

     " (...) The beauty of chess is close to that in poetry. Chess figures are an alphabet that shapes thoughts, and these thoughts express themselves abstractly through the visual design that occurs on the chessboard, just like in poetry... After years of closeness with chess players and artists, I can honestly say that not all chess players are artists, while not all artists are chess players."

(M. Duchamp)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Özer Mumcu
• Release date: Mar 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224213511

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Author: Ozer MUMCU

Copyright © 2021 Ozer Mumcu

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ozer Mumcu was born in Tekirdağ in 1980. He completed his primary and secondary education at Tekirdağ Anatolian High School and Private Tekirdağ Science High School with a scholarship.  He graduated from Trakya University Electronic Communication Technology in 2003, Namık Kemal University Faculty of Fine Arts Painting Department in 2020 and received a pedagogical formation certificate from Istanbul University in the same year. In 2022, he completed his master's degree at NKU Faculty of Fine Arts.

He started to take place in chess tournament as a player from his high school years and earned various rankings and international chess rating.

Since 2006, he has been working as a translator, chess coach and visual arts teacher in various institutions.

FOREWORD

From adolescence and early adulthood, I was interested in different subjects that seemed unrelated. I don't think it's human nature to specialize in one area and build your whole life on this area. I have always been interested in the life of characters who have synthesized different disciplines and moved into the history books. Leonardo Da Vinci and Maurits Cornelis Escher may be the first names I admire at this point.

However, despite my belated age, a name I first heard during my fine arts education caught my attention: Marcel Duchamp. After my own readings, while focusing frequently on the contributions of this versatile character to the philosophy of art, I realized that the artist's curiosity about chess, which is mentioned superficially in the same sources, is not at all such a curiosity and that a very remarkable chess career has been overlooked somewhat. He had worldwide success as an actor. As a player of the same team as the famous world champion Alekhine, I saw him represent the French national team at the Olympics, earning draws and gains against the best players of the period such as Tartakower, Colle, Marshall. When the understanding of the game was examined closely, it became clear that what he was interested in , just as in his artistic career, was not only to win, but to make a difference. When I realized that in addition to acting, he took serious powers and responsibilities in the world chess federation, wrote various chess books, as well as reflecting his inspiration from chess on many of his artistic works, I felt the need to address this issue.

As an art teacher who has just finished school, I do not yet see enough competence in myself to write a book directly on painting or visual arts. Despite my years of association with chess as a player and subsequent coach and interpreter, and some humble achievements, it probably wouldn't be up to me to write a chess book in the presence of top professionals and thousands of chess sources that already exist. But I thought it was appropriate for