All to Play and Lose (2011)

Mirror polished stainless steel, neon lights, transformer, 99 X 99 x 17 cm

All to Play and Lose (2011) is a complex steel installation resembling a jigsaw puzzle with various sized cut out hand guns illuminated from underneath by an entangled layer of neon lights. The title suggests that there are no apparent winners or losers and takes a two-fold inspiration from the notion of the treacherous that threads through the filmic narration presented in Crystal & Flame and Alterity (Balthazar). The title is a re-worked rendition of Marcel Duchamp’s 1943 exhibition announcement for which he created a reversed image of a chess problem accompa- nied by the instruction: white to play to win, based on the hierarchal status that white chess pieces hold. Moreover, Duchamp’s announcement also provided additional instructions to look at the image “against light.” Alterity, Sara Raza, 201