Just opened at MetaLES is Queens Gambit Declined, a new installation – with some familiar motifs – by Rebeca Bashly.
The title is drawn from one of the classic opening moves of chess, wherein the player using the black pieces can respond to the white player’s opening Queen’s Gambit, by declining the opportunity to capture a proffered pawn, opting instead to defend their own exposed man. However, precisely how title / reference fits with the installation has left me a little bewildered .MetaLES: Queen’s Gambit Declined by Rebeca Bashly].
Two great stone towers, perhaps the last remnants of some gigantic bridge, rise from the waters of the flooded region, their appearance slightly reminiscent of Manhattan’s famous Brooklyn Bridge.
Suspended between these by massive chains, sits an enormous circular stone platform, its top occupied by a large hedged maze. Above this, and also tethered to the remnants of the bridge by heavyset ropes, floats a massive heart, similar in nature to the one seen in Rebeca’s When Life Gives You Apples … Run (which I reviewed here), but with arteries and veins bearing rose-like thorns…..
Source: A Queen’s Gambit Declined in Second Life | Inara Pey: Living in a Modem World
