Spice Chess

Spice Chess is an artist's multiple by the Japanese artist Takako Saito, whilst she was resident in the United States. Originally manufactured winter 1964-65, and offered for sale March 1965, the work is one of a famous series of disrupted chess sets referred to as Fluxchess or Flux Chess, made for George Maciunas' Fluxshop at his Canal Street loft, SoHo, New York and later through his Fluxus Mail-Order Warehouse.

"Takako Saito engaged with Duchamp's practice but also with masculinist cold war metaphors by taking up chess as a subject of art. Saito's fluxchess works... question the primacy of vision to chess, along with notions of perception and in aesthetic experience more generally.... Her "Smell Chess," "Sound Chess" and "Weight Chess" reworked the game of chess so that players would be forced to hone non-visual perception, such as the olfactory sense, tactility, and aurality, in order to follow chess rules." Claudia Mesch

The set follows the normal rules of chess, but replaces the traditional pieces with identically-shaped transparent plastic vials filled with different spices for each of the different pieces. The set includes white pawns made of Cinnamon, white rooks of Nutmeg, the white knights are Ginger, black bishops, Cumin and the Black King made of Asafoetida. The white Queen is Anise, the black Cayenne pepper. The board is also made of transparent plastic. To start the game, both players have to familiarise themselves with each of the 12 smells involved, instead of the more normal reliance on sight.