This Luxury Watch Brand Looks to Contemporary Art for Inspiration
For Chinese artist Sun Xun, the existential questions explored in his artwork are the same existential questions he asks of himself. What is time? What is forever? What is history? What is the future? What is now?
At the invitation of luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet, a site-specific artwork called "Reconstruction of the Universe" was unveiled for the second Audemars Piguet Art Commission at Art Basel in Miami this past weekend. It may not immediately seem like a natural pairing, but these compelling time-related concepts are shared by AP-a reflection upon the rapidly changing future of complicated fine watches. What seems to be a highly conceptual connection slowly reveals an important similarity between the artist and watchmaker.
The large-scale artwork consists of an open-air bamboo pavilion made up of two parts. The first is a walk-through gallery space with traditionally framed woodcut prints shown alongside giant glowing spheres featuring spinning animated images. A second theater-like space shows a compelling 3-D animated film, "Time Spy," featuring images of traditional Chinese themes like the deeply symbolic five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The film was created with thousands of woodblock prints; each image has to be hand carved to make the individual cels used to animate the mesmerizing 10-minute final cut.
Located on an expansive stretch of South Beach, the wave-like structure of the bamboo pavilion was initially inspired by the natural environment. "I visited the Audemars Piguet museum and got to see where the watches were made. I spoke with the people in Le Brassus and got the story behind the watches," Sun Xun explains. The Miami Beach Seaside may have provided the inspiration for the sculptural structure, but it was this trip to Audemars Piguet in Switzerland where the artist received his main inspiration.
"I talk about time in my work, the concept of the beginning of the world. I also discussed the idea of time with Audemars Piguet, and discovered they don't only make a watch-they are creating art," he says. "There are a lot of similarities between our work, and this was the beginning-it's a similar process of starting with tradition moving into the future."
Olivier Audemars (the great-grandson of Audemars Piguet's co-founder and the company's Vice Chairman of the Board) finds great inspiration in discovering these alternative points of view. "These encounters we have with artists help us to see things differently. Artists have the capacity to put into their art pieces their own ability to see the signals of the world. When you work with them it is an opportunity to see these signals," he explains.
"You get a different understating of our surroundings, and through that we can transform the company and adapt better to a changing world," Audemars continues. "When you look at an art piece, like this one by Sun Xun, it helps bring us to a higher level. The questions that Sun Xun is asking about the meaning of time and the universe are the same questions that we are asking ourselves."
Olivier Audemars illustrates his point by showing me a perfect example, the watch on his wrist, a Royal Oak Concept Supersonnerie. A high-concept timepiece project developed about eight years ago, the minute repeater chimes the time with exceptional acoustic clarity. "Our ancestors-these early watchmakers-were looking at their surroundings, the stars, and the universe, and trying to replicate the movements into the small mechanism you have on your wrist," he says.
"The Sonnerie involved physicists, engineers, instrument makers, musicians, watchmakers, and even neurologists. One thing that we discovered is that the harmonics that are produced by individual instruments are not the ones your brain is perceiving-your brain suppresses [some] and recreates other ones that don't exist. To master the right sound, the watch recreates the right harmonics that your brain perceives as the most beautiful."
It's a conceptual idea for fine watchmaking that's on par with much of the challenging artwork on display. "Working with artists gives us a deeper understanding of our ever-changing world," Audemars says. "We are both making things-objects or paintings or sculptures that speak much more to the heart than to the brain. Like visiting with a Cuban artist here at Art Basel Miami. You get a much a deeper level of understanding-better than the newspapers, business reports, or politics can provide."
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