It's How You Play the Game

edited by Sheila Kim-Jamet -- Interior Design, 9/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

In 1944, legendary New York art dealer Julien Levy—best known as a champion of surrealism—organized a show of chess-inspired art by Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, Man Ray, and Isamu Noguchi. The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City is now presenting the encore, "The Imagery of Chess Revisited."

"The works highlight the crosscurrents of influence and inspiration between European émigrés and nascent New York abstractionists in the early 1940's—which would prove to be critical to the development of New York as the capital of avant-garde art," says guest curator Larry List. On view: chess sets by Noguchi, Alexander Calder, and Alberto Giacometti, plus related work by other artists. October 20–March 5; 718-204-7088; noguchi.org.