“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” These words, spoken by heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, are the tabula rasa for this work. This punch might be a beginning or an end. It’s supposed that we make art that is about something, or that reflects something, or interrogates something. There is always this something, somewhere, that we work in service to; but suddenly it’s clear we’ve been picking up the tool by the wrong end. The chessboard seems to have been tipped over and the moves are moot. Chess, the universal metaphor for worlds ordered by strategy and skill, appears in a shambolic state. It’s revealed the players are not good at the game, or they don’t know the rules, or they cheat, or they are drunk…are they even here? And what about the pieces? What was game is real and that means the pieces are wayward, addicted, befuddled and act unconsciously. The queen is a clown, the king is a thing of nothing, and the pawns are worshiping unknown gods. The pieces drag in one by one and when all are accounted for (some MIA and some DOA of course) the new rules will be revealed, for without the rules there is no game.

Lara Allen lives and works in Brooklyn.