Iepe Rubingh
Artist / Founder of Chessboxing / Storyteller / Entrepreneur / Innovator
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Lives in Berlin, Germany
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1974
Chessboxing (2018)
Chessboxing is a hybrid fighting sport that combines chess and boxing. It was initiated in 2003 by Iepe Rubingh, inspired by Enki Bilal’s 1992 comic Froid Équateur. The first chessboxing match took place in Berlin in 2003 and the first world championship fight was held in Amsterdam the same year. Rubingh understands Chessboxing as a massive social sculpture, questioning traditional masculinity. The mixed-gender sport is now represented by eleven national chessboxing organizations with a total of 3,500 fighters. Recently, two professional world championships in Moscow and Berlin and ten Intellectual Fight Clubs took place, as well as one amateur world championship with 120 fighters from six nations in Kolkata, India. Rubingh teaches Athenians the rules and introduces the game in Greece.
#chessboxing #intellectual #fightclub #mind #body
photos: Nysos Vasilopoulos, 6th Athens Biennale 2018 ANTI
Workshop, training, and performance
Chessboxing,
2003–2018
Video, 48'13''
Courtesy of the artist