This means war. 

You can’t have my family, 

you can’t have my increase…

I plead, 

I plead the blood. 

— War by Charles Jenkins & Fellowship Chicago

My first move in chess is often moving the pawn in front of my castle/rook so that I can take the offense and over-utilize my sharp shooter piece before the others even make a move. It is a ‘get them before you get got mentality.’ To an inexperienced chess player that strategy might look demure, random, or uncalculated. Perhaps it’s my positionality, but I come from a long line of fierce warriors and no-shit-takers, so naturally I embrace acts of strategic warfare.

Before entering the door with large banners announcing the exhibition, my eyes came across a lobby with checkered floors and large ionic columns across from each other in an about face. A floating wall and parquet floors (a spotlight on a 2 x 2 of them) that echo a chessboard greet me first. Beside the wall text, there’s a surrealist work where the chessboard and pieces are the ceiling as the protagonist looks to the lush background. Strategic Interplay: African Art and Imagery in Black and White is a show born out of a reinterpretation of the permanent collection, but some new acquisitions have been made and one commission. The show is divided into three sections: openings and interplays, the modern gambit, and end game.

I was immediately drawn to the large-scale Willie Cole titled, To get to the otherside (2001) as the centerpiece of the exhibition. While it showed a literal interpretation of the chessboard, there were so many more layers of his work than meets the eye. The piece is a play on pawns and the image of the lawn jockey. Instead of the pawns being positioned as teams playing against each other and part of a larger game, they are positioned in a face-off —a self-sacrificing game. While many of the figures were similar as they were from the same cast, they had differences between them, such as, some were adorned with bottles, bundles, nails, and knives while others were not. One faced the opposite direction as the rest, where in the game of chess a pawn can resurrect another taken piece, but it carried empty liquor bottles on its body.

The nkisi-inspired pawns with medicine bundles attached to them and nails driven through them drew me in the most.; they had white eyes or eyes with jewels in-laid. Even the signature red and black in this context transformed my association of the object with Baulè (Côte D’ivoire) spirit spouses or colon figures* that echoed the style of colonizers. Or even, the material of concrete and steel conjured the presence of Ogun, the god of iron, steel, and war. Cole, therefore, reappropriated these objects filled with the history of white supremacy and dominance into guardian-like figures.

What strengthens its power further is that The chess players—checkmate by George W. Flagg (George Whiting) (c.1836) faces it. This work made while the Civil War was brewing in the US shows a pair of white people playing chess with a Black woman relegated to the background almost as if blending into the accouterment. Yet the players decide her future. Willie Cole upends that. While the game is rigged, so to speak, he imbues the figures with agency and spiritual power.

A black mask, bearded and tattooed is eternal here. 

It speaks of life, 

It smells of earth, 

It oozes blood,

And vests power into power.

— “Congo Form” by Max Weber in Pr****ves: Poems and Woodcuts (1926)**

I was also drawn to the three cutouts in floating walls throughout the exhibition which displayed two chess sets and West African stool-like chairs, but all three held the power of directing sight lines. Through the first rectangular oculus, I found a video playing at the back—Natalie Penang’s Chess is a Dance (1996), showcases a woman dancing in black and white on chessboards. Therein, you could hear a clicking sound of pieces moving that goes along with computerized games to acknowledge that you made a move.

The chess sets from the past were also fascinating. The game originated in the 13th century by the Moors (referring to peoples from Morocco and Algeria) according to the signage. There were two French chess sets from the 19th and 18th centuries, notably the height of colonialism, with a Mankonde wooden chess set along with a small game piece with the name of Queen Tiy from Ancient Egypt (1391–1353 BCE). Like the Goodwill.com rabbit hole I’ve gone on for Christmas gifts and the desire to have some forms of entertainment in my new place, chess replays the ills of colonialism. In old sets, it’s common to see conquistadors versus natives or Europeans versus Africans.

Other standout included History of Africa (1987) by El Anatsui, Peju Alatise’s Death and the King’s Alaso Ofi (part 2) (2018). El Anatsui, mostly known for large-scale reclaimed object-based works that look like a tapestry of small objects, made a work on paper that starts with adinkra symbols (a writing system by the Akan peoples—the epicenter of which, was located in what now is Ghana). Adinkra morphs into blocks of black and white. That cultural reference, plus the title suggested the erasure of history and culture due to colonialism, alter the playing field. Alatise’s work is remarkable from a material standpoint: squares with keys arranged like a mosaic, smelted metal, fabric squares in geometric shapes that are unique but altogether becoming a checkered pattern. The creative reclamation of materials makes the work stand out and make the eyes graze it over like a hand touching every detail; feeling its rigidity and smoothness.

But there were also works by the likes of Man Ray, grandmaster chess player Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, and other European artists inspired by African forms and chess, whether explicit or implicit. Many of these works started the exhibition (replaying the same colonial framework it was meant to undo). In fact, the exhibition could
have still made sense without them.

My main critique of the show was that it was curated in such a way where some works relied too much on interpretive labels to show how they fit into the broader narrative of the show rather than the objects speaking for themselves, especially some of the works in the “End Game” section. Some examples include Woman’s Skirt by the Kuba in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madeline Obundo’s Untitled vase (1988), and Alison Saar’s Topsy and the Golden Fleece (2017). The thesis of the exhibition would have been clearer without these objects because it was unclear why a Saar’s piece depicting a doll-sized nude figure with multiple pigtails or Ogbundo’s  smooth, smokey-looking vase (other than the form being in conversation with Picasso, Ray, and Duchamp) related to chess. 

Finally, what sat with me was that a lot of the works from Africa (masks, headdresses, etc.) were new acquisitions as of 2024. Many were noted as gifts or exchanges from the Edward Drummond Libbey Endowment. What was exchanged? How was this ethically acquired in 2024? Did someone go to the continent to source these works? Likely not. Hidden move in the credit line. In the Egyptian galleries, it said, “The lasting impact of Florence Scott Libbey (1863-1938), the wife of glass industrialist Edward Drummond Libbey and a co-founder of the Toledo Museum of Art, is found throughout the galleries-including this work she gave to TMA.” So many questions, left unanswered. Industrial money and secrets shrouding the acquisition—feels like it celebrates the capitalist opulence of the states which is deeply tied to enslavement and colonization.

I acknowledge that the TMA and David Suttons PR agency reached out to me via email, organized, and paid for this press trip. With that said, my integrity as a writer is integral to my practice. I always have and will keep it 100.

The exhibition “Strategic Interplay: African Art and Imagery in Black and White” is on view at the Toledo Museum of Art from November 9, 2024 – February 23, 2025.

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*Colons or “spirit spouses” represent a deep connection to an otherworldly figure represented in a physical form. Appeasing the spirit spouse is crucial to navigating the spirit world. They represent ideal beauty. In the 1800s and 1900s, they morphed into adopting Victorian style dress and donning pith helmets. This colonial dress infiltrated the sacred dream space where folks tether themselves to their ideal partner. Anecdotally, the Cheryl Olkes Collection of African Art that I first encountered these belongings, had this one that may have been Yoruba rather than Baule (based on its hairstyle and collections category) and had red skin, it was bare chested, and had a black mouth and features. A supposed divination expert visited the school and was interpolated by that figure saying it has a strong energy and shouldn’t be housed under the forms at Woodland Hall.

**Title the quote by Weber is censored because the context of the word is a harmful slur and outdated term that holds no meaning and further emphasizes a harmful, demeaning, and infantilizing colonial gaze.

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