Within chess, the Bongcloud Attack is an unconventional opening that consists out of the moves 4e, e5, Ke2. It’s regarded as a joke that completely goes against the grain, but you could also say that it’s inventive, surprising, with a playful tongue-in-cheekness that is reminiscent of that of the ardent chess player Marcel Duchamp. What it comes down to is that the king is immediately put into a vulnerable position, without a further possibility to castle. But in a sense he’s therefore also immediately much more active as he’s obliged to actively enter the game from the start, rather than hide and be protected, obliged to sticking his neck out so to speak. Maybe the king can thus be seen as a metaphor for a daring collector.

Salon’s proposition to produce a collection of art works, each measuring 30×30 cm, to both sustain artists, attract a new generation of collectors and create a platform for development and discussion, is in my view, just as left-field as the Bongcloud Attack in chess. This online exhibition doesn’t have the 64 fields of a chess board, but only 12. Their square format and formation nevertheless reminded me of it. My eclectic choice of artists and artworks from Salon’s collection enter in a conversation that can be compared to Duchamp’s remark in how the play of chess is completely in one’s grey matter and in fact a form of art.

Without any actively moving pieces, nor competition, the selected works enter in a playful exchange  The Bongcloud Attack thus serves both as a metaphor for Salon’s set up and as a curatorial idea that chimes well with my usual approach of making exhibitions in which an absurd title is often an important point of departure.

My selection of the works of Seth Bausermann (USA), Tarik Chebli (FRA), Patrik Dvorsak (SVN), Tommaso Fattovich (ITA), Diana Hyslop (ZAF), Sonia Martins Mateus (PRT), Norman O’Flynn (ZAF), Lisa Pettibone (USA) and Wonder (ZAF), lets them interconnect, temporarily coming together, moving around and entering in discussion, open to further discovery and exploration. It’s a highly personal selection in which I was inspired by the rich interplay with the abstract and figurative, the strong layering of text, materials, cultural or personal references, titles, both in the artists’s individual work and between them.

Of some artists I selected multiple works, such as of Diana Hyslop who opens and closes the selection. Her woman is watching with watchful Picassoesque eyes whereas her ‘From Above’ brings different ways of being and seeing together in different planes. In-between the work of the other selected artists plays hide and seek between abstraction and figuration, text and image, playful despair, light mockery maybe that’s nevertheless serious.

The unexpected internal collisions lead to new visions and ideas that I feel also lie at the heart of Salon’s new enterprise. A true Bongcloud Attack.

Edith Doove, Rouen, 18 August 2026