Chessless Chess

History of the work

At the Federal Archives on Archivstrasse 24 stands 'Schachloses Schach' (Chessless Chess) by Heinz Brand. The city dates the work to 1985 and 1986 and cautiously describes the material as stone, probably Italian marble. The artists' lexicon SIKART lists it with the year 1986 and gives marble and granite as its materials. A photograph on Wikimedia Commons is captioned as a marble sculpture.

The work was made just after the archive had been rebuilt: from 1980 to 1985 Theodor Gohl's building of 1896–1899 was completely renovated and extended by an underground store. The available sources do not say whether the sculpture was commissioned in connection with this rebuilding.

Heinz Brand was born in Biberist on 8 March 1944. He attended the school of applied arts in Bern from 1960 to 1965, spent a year in Japan in 1966–1967, attended the photography class of the Zurich school of applied arts in 1968 and later studied at the art academy in Lodz and at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. SIKART counts him among the first Swiss artists to place photography as an artistic medium alongside the classical genres.

Since his stays in Kyoto in 1966 and 1984, Brand has, according to SIKART, been closely engaged with Zen Buddhism. This led to a series of so-called invisible sculptures, such as 'Der Unsichtbare' (The Invisible One) of 1987, of which only a gilded and a silvered cube can be seen. In Bern he also made the 'Denkstation' (Thinking Station) on Bubenbergplatz. On site, try to tell where marble and where granite has been used.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · SIKART: Heinz Brand (Susanne Bieri) · Wikipedia (de): Heinz Brand (Künstler) · Wikipedia (de): Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv · Wikimedia Commons: Marmorskulptur Schachloses Schach (Heinz Brand 1986)