BFBS92 — Ismar Čirkinagić
ENTER II at Kunsthallen Brandts presents Ismar Čirkinagić with BFBS92.
The exhibition opens October 13, 2011 and runs until January 29, 2012.
This somewhat minimalist artwork, BFBS92, is based on an attempt to extract from social life what might be called an irrelevant fragment — in this case, the chess match between Fischer and Spassky played in 1992 in Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro at the time) — and to transfer it, in a slightly abstract form, into the exhibition space. The intention is that within this new context, the maximum of experience that this event reflects on the political world of today can be extracted.
The work is essentially an audio script of the moves from the first game of the Fischer/Spassky match of ’92. Divided across two stereo speakers, the moves are called alternately — each speaker giving voice to one of the two players. Due to the absence of a physical chessboard or pieces in the exhibition space, the entire game takes place in the mind, like a game of blindfold chess.1
This leaves room only for trained players to follow the game to the end, while most of the audience will soon lose track of where the pieces stand. A similar situation exists in modern society: even if we are all relatively well informed about the political situation in the world, we still receive only fragments of a larger picture, and we are unable to assemble the whole — simply because we were not trained to do so, or because we lack the necessary experience, or perhaps because we are not fully committed to the problem. Information in the media is often stripped of context, detached from any position, and frequently reduced to the level of chess moves — all in the name of “objective” information. This gives us a false sense of security, a feeling that nothing is hidden from us, and in order not to disturb that feeling, we honestly want nothing more than the information served to us. We are not really interested in the big picture, yet we genuinely believe we know all about it — or could, if we really wanted to.
Equally important in this work is the selection of this specific chess match. If their first encounter in 1972 was the Chess Match of the Century — the birth of an American hero who defeated the Soviet Union (to beat Spassky was to beat the Soviet system, since chess was in the Soviet Union a part of the system itself) — their 1992 rematch marked the beginning of the hero’s fall. By playing this match in Yugoslavia in ’92, Fischer broke the United Nations embargo and became a fugitive from the law, and for almost the rest of his life, a man without a country. The heroes of the Cold War were simply no longer needed.2
This was precisely the moment of the end of the Cold War, the disintegration of the Soviet Union — and of Yugoslavia — and the beginning of the new and perhaps even more paranoid times we live in today, whether we call it “The New World Order,” as George Bush Sr. did,3 or what Slavoj Žižek calls “living in the end of times,” or something else entirely. For this reason, this chess match is for me a symbolic link between two eras — bordering, in its own strange way, on the beginning of my own new life, also as a man without a country.4 Like any romantic escape into the past, it is a symbolic critique of today. But if at any point in the future, for any reason, we begin to look at the Cold War with nostalgia, it will be time to start asking serious questions.
One final thought: making a cocktail of minor cultural fragments and placing them in the context of global events, with a touch of conspiracy theory, is a kind of act of paranoia. Does this reflect the delusional constructions of the artist, who is often nothing more than a mirror of society — or is there a possibility that it is part of our collective subconscious?
1 Blindfold chess is a form of chess in which the players do not see the positions of the pieces or touch them, and are therefore required to maintain a mental model of the board. Moves are communicated via recognised chess notation. (Source: Wikipedia)
2 An almost identical situation can be observed in the case of the Afghan Taliban.
3 “Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a world order in which the principles of justice and fair play protect the weak against the strong. A world where the United Nations, freed from Cold War stalemate, is poised to fulfil the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations.” — George Bush Sr., address to the U.S. Congress, March 6, 1991.
4 The United Nations sanctions against Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) were introduced due to their involvement in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina — the country Ismar Čirkinagić had to leave for the same reason.