Marcos Ramirez ERRE | Whites Always Move First
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Opening Reception: Saturday, November 9, 6-8pm
Quint Gallery is proud to present Marcos Ramirez ERRE at ONE this November. In this exhibition, the artist stages an installation centered by a concrete chess board. ERRE has often used the concept of a game to satirize and interrogate geopolitical conflicts both domestic and global. In this installation, the artist turns a chess set into a game of wartime strategy. Under ERRE’s directives, the 32 chess pieces are swapped with miniature bombs and bullets, modeled from those developed over the course of the 20th century by both NATO and the former Soviet Union. In his tactical use of word play and double meanings, “Whites Always Move First” refers to both the rules of chess in which the player with the white pieces makes the first move, and the implications of colonialism and imperialism enacted by the United States and Europe on countries around the world. Mounted during the week of the 2024 United States presidential elections, Whites Always Move First wryly gamifies the politically-motivated deployment of money, power, and weapons that separate victory from defeat. This representation of a chessboard, removed of its black and white squares, raises questions about protection at the expense of destruction and instead renders a deliberate gray area in an era of increasing polarization between sides.
Marcos Ramirez ERRE is one of the foremost contemporary artists engaged in work surrounding the experience of existing on both sides of the busiest land-border crossing in the world. In addition to his studio practice, the artist has come to prominence with significant public and roving land art installations over the past two decades. He has been the subject of a number of solo exhibitions at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA (2016), Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA (2014), MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, San Jose, CA (2012), Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (2010), and Centro Cultural Tijuana, Mexico (1996); he has also participated in group exhibitions at the Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA (2017-18); Today Art Museum, Beijing (2016-17); SITE Santa Fe Biennial (2014); the California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA (2008); Moscow Biennale (2007); The São Paulo/Valencia Bienal Valencia, Spain ( 2007); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2005); Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba (2000); the Whitney Biennial, New York, NY (2000); and the InSite 1997 and 2000 editions in the San Diego / Tijuana border region. In 2021, Mass MOCA presented THEM AND US / ELLOS Y NOSOTROS, a survey of the artist’s work, and in 2023 his seminal 1997 work Stripes and Fence Forever: Homage to Jasper Johns was acquired by SFMOMA.
