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Lot Essay
Smell Chess Set is a rare example of FLUXUS artist Takako Saito’s simple yet conceptually radical chess set designs.
A member of the FLUXUS art movement in the 1960s, Saito was the creator and fabricator of many FLUXUS projects, including her iconic Sound Chess, Smell Chess and Weight Chess. Just as Sol Lewitt worked out spatial permutations with a cube, Saito has used the conceptual structure of games like chess to create works which radically dislocate the senses. Saito has produced over one hundred works of this kind, the most in-depth exploration of the relationship between chess and art since the work of Marcel Duchamp.
The ability to visually identify the hierarchy and function of chess pieces is integral to the game, but Saito challenges the viewer's expected experience of identity by making all of the pieces identical, hollow wooden cubes. In Saito's chess sets the pieces can only be identified through the non-visual senses, by sound when shaken (Sound Chess), or by scent (Smell Chess), with each cube containing a signature spice. While Saito’s sets resemble the cerebral cube permutations of Minimalism, they challenge the detachment of much abstract art, in which sense of touch is not permitted. Instead, her transformed games become a constant sensual “hands-on” encounter of grasping, shaking, and smelling.
A member of the FLUXUS art movement in the 1960s, Saito was the creator and fabricator of many FLUXUS projects, including her iconic Sound Chess, Smell Chess and Weight Chess. Just as Sol Lewitt worked out spatial permutations with a cube, Saito has used the conceptual structure of games like chess to create works which radically dislocate the senses. Saito has produced over one hundred works of this kind, the most in-depth exploration of the relationship between chess and art since the work of Marcel Duchamp.
The ability to visually identify the hierarchy and function of chess pieces is integral to the game, but Saito challenges the viewer's expected experience of identity by making all of the pieces identical, hollow wooden cubes. In Saito's chess sets the pieces can only be identified through the non-visual senses, by sound when shaken (Sound Chess), or by scent (Smell Chess), with each cube containing a signature spice. While Saito’s sets resemble the cerebral cube permutations of Minimalism, they challenge the detachment of much abstract art, in which sense of touch is not permitted. Instead, her transformed games become a constant sensual “hands-on” encounter of grasping, shaking, and smelling.