Untitled (Do you feel comfortable losing?)

Barbara Kruger is renowned for her hard-hitting public art interventions that utilise the language of advertising to question stereotypes relating to gender and race. In her chess set, a red-framed, close-cropped photo of a face with eyes shut and mouth open provides the background upon which the grid of the board is scored. The face expression is highly ambiguous: is it shouting in glee, crying in pain or swallowing defeat? Despite drawing loose formal inspiration from the chess designs of Man Ray (see lots 3, 5 & 6) and Hartwig (lots 1 & 2), it is John Cage’s 1968 Reunion performance that provides the conceptual background for the work. Kruger has produced a unique chess set where each piece on the board is a miniature speaker. Every chess piece contains a series of different audio recordings from classic Kruger questions such as ‘What’s up with your hair’ or provocative announcements like ‘You feel comfortable losing’ and ‘You can’t be serious’. When heard together during the course of a game their real voices construct an audio conversational piece that parallels the act of playing chess.

This work is accompanied by a certificate issued by the publisher and signed by the artist.