José María Sicre chess tournament. F5

2022

Performance

Chess establishes the equality in the number of pieces, movements and attack effectiveness, having only two details as inequality of conditions: the particular agility that a player has over his opponent, and the inferiority of the black pieces from the white ones, since these always have the upper hand of the game, “which gives them an essential advantage at high levels of competition.”

This data symbolically represents a tangible reality in the contemporary world, where power relations mark the destinies of some over others, fundamentally on the racial issue.

Taking this as an starting point, we will carry out a chess tournament that will be called Félix Sicre, in homage to the first unofficial chess champion of Cuba (1860), who was a freed black slave. The important thing about this event is that the game will always start with the black pieces.

The performance takes place in a context of tension for the Cuban people, who came out to demonstrate on July 11th for greater political freedoms. And whose consequences have been the arrest of more than a thousand people. The author of this performance, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, was arrested before being able to join the protests. He is currently detained in Guanajay, a maximum security prison.

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* “José María Sicre chess tournament. F5” was inserted at the Summit of the Americas held in June 2022 in Los Angeles, California, USA.