What Is Dadaist Chess?

In the previous post for the series inspired by AI Comics, Cubist Chess (February 2025; 'Marcel Duchamp plays cubist chess.'), I wrote,

Cubism I understand -- at least I think I do -- Dadaism is a mystery. Let's go with what I understand. [...] Next on the agenda: dadaist.

First and foremost, what's Dadaism? In Dada (wikipedia.org), we learn,

Dada or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War [aka WWI] and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had spread to New York City and a variety of artistic centers in Europe and Asia.

To explore its relationship to chess, I'll use the same Google search technique last seen in 1992 Fischer - Spassky 'Under the Weather' (September 2022), i.e. a composite image.

Google Image search on 'chess dadaist'
[Call the rows 'A' to 'C' (from top to bottom) and number the images in each row '1' to '8' (from left to right).]

More than a third of those thumbnails show chess sets and half of those are the 'Man Ray chess set', most prominently in dead center of the composite at B4. Another third have something to with Marcel Duchamp, including his 'Portrait of Chess Players' in A6 and C2. Both artists are seen playing each other in A5.

As for his several mentions in this blog, Marcel Duchamp made a Chess Review cover appearance in November 1968 'On the Cover' (November 2018; 'Marcel Duchamp died at 81 last October 1st, in Paris. [...]') I can't imagine what 'Marcel Duchamp plays dadaist chess' ('anti-establishment art'?) will look like. We'll find out in the next post in the series.