Here are the 3 finished Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled sculptures. I used the same flat black paint to finish them as I did for the A Theory of Forms and Ideas sculpture series. I left the back sides unpainted because I only needed the fronts to be finished to create the illusion of a finished sculpture in the final photos. I did the same thing when I created The Problem of a Compounded Abstraction (The Field) by only finishing the front two sides and the tops of the back 2 pieces to create the illusion that the whole sculpture was finished when in fact the sides that can’t be seen in the photo are unfinished. By doing this though I have created a dilemma since I now feel obligated to show the photos of the unfinished backs as part of the final product. In a way I have to decide if this is a dialogue that I want to be having or if it only complicates the narrative of my sculptures. I’ll probably edit out the photos of the backs but I like the idea that it further enhances the inherent illusion of photographing three dimensional objects.
Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled is a book written by Marcel Duchamp and the German chess master Vital Halberstadt which aims to reconcile the alleged differences between positions of opposition and the concept of sister squares in chess.
“Duchamp and his coauthor set about to prove that theories of opposition and theories of ‘sister squares’ are actually one and the same, and that they represent only variant methods by which to solve essentially the same endgame situation.”
Brian Higbee 