Arts Flanders

The Stedelijk Museum Schiedam is the first Dutch museum to hold a solo exhibition of work by Rinus Van de Velde. The exhibition is called 'The Lost Bishop'. This young Belgian artist creates large-scale charcoal drawings, in combination with text on the wall or in the drawings themselves. Especially for this exhibition, Van de Velde has produced a drawing measuring 9 x 3 metres on a free-standing aluminium wall, which depicts, along with several other works on paper, the legendary chess match between the two great chess masters of the 20th century, Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. However, this world event is presented as part of Van de Velde's own world, art-directed in his own specific way after an interval of 40 years.

In his new series - The Lost Bishop - Van de Velde depicts the famous match of the century between chess masters Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, who competed for the world title in 1972. The match was held in Reykjavik at the peak of the Cold War. It was a confrontation between two chess players and two social systems: the individual Bobby Fischer from the US battling against the Soviet-Russian hegemony, this time embodied by Boris Spassky. Fischer lost the first game due to a disastrous bishop sacrifice: the lost bishop. Following this, he did not turn up for the second game.

Rinus Van de Velde (Leuven, 1983) studied at Sint-Lukas College in Antwerp, after which he followed a post-academic programme at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts/HISK in Ghent. This young Belgian artist was soon sufficiently proficient to exhibit his work in London, Istanbul, Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Berlin and New York. He is now represented by galleries in Amsterdam, Berlin and Antwerp. His work is now also in the collection of the Flemish Parliament and in various museums and private collections.

The Lost Bishop
12 May - 2 September 2012

More information: www.stedelijkmuseumschiedam.nl - http://rinusvandevelde.com