CROSS SECTION / 04

CROSS SECTION/04
Tom Hackney, Roland Hicks, Catrin Morgan 
30 June - 29 July 2017, preview 29 June (6.30 - 8.30 pm)

dalla Rosa is delighted to present CROSS SECTION/04 a three-person exhibition gathering new work by Tom Hackney, Roland Hicks, and Catrin Morgan.

Tom Hackney’s series of Notation Drawings are made by transcribing the moves of chess games played and recorded by Marcel Duchamp in the form of handwritten chess notation. Chess notation refers to the system used for recording the sequence of moves made within a game of chess. Where a musical composition can be recorded by marking notes on a stave, the progress of a game of chess can be charted by recording the coordinates of each move in the form of descriptive or algebraic notation. These records allow for games to be retrospectively analysed and replayed. As such, chess notation provides both the means for the development of chess theory and the medium in which the game’s history is preserved.
The drawings are made by marking the path of each move, in sequence, on a 8 x 8 grid. This path is masked off and systematically marked in a layer of ink, carefully sprayed using an airbrush. Each drawing comprises the accumulated marks of an entire game, its composition unique to the given game. The Notation Drawings accompany Tom Hackney’s ongoing series of Chess Paintings (2009-present) that continue to examine the challenges posed, particularly to painting, by Marcel Duchamp’s designation of a non-retinal art. The series of drawings materialised after Hackney encountered Duchamp’s handwritten pen and ink chess notation in the archive at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2016.

dalla Rosa Gallery

3 Leighton Place | London NW5 2QL

www.dallarosagallery.com