Marc Newson Exhibition in Philly Features Timepieces For Jaeger-LeCoultre And Ikepod

Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos 561, 2008. Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

While at the Philadelphia Museum of Art I was surprised to find an exhibition dedicated to industrial designer Marc Newson and that the display included several timepieces.

I shouldn’t have been too surprised by the timepieces. After all, Newson, 50, whose works range from an aircraft interiors and a concept car to home appliances and furnishings, is a partner in the Swiss timepiece firm, Ikepod. Three pieces from that firm were on view at the exhibition titled “Marc Newson: At Home.” There was also a timepiece he designed for the venerable luxury Swiss watch brand, Jaeger-LeCoultre.

In 2008, Newson created 80th-anniversary editions of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos Clock (top picture), a timepiece that runs on temperature and atmospheric pressure changes in the environment. It never needs winding. The model on display at the exhibition is the Atmos 561, a pared-down and contemporary model of the eternal clock.

The clock’s mechanism runs on a mixture of gaseous and liquid ethyl chloride that expands and contracts with the temperature. The clock must be hermetically sealed for it to operate. In this interpretation, Newson built a bubble-like case made of Baccarat crystal that creates the appearance of a timepiece that floats. Hour and minute hands, month indicators, moon phases and the Atmos 561 name are accented in blue.

Ikepod Hourglass, 2010. Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

For Ikepod, he created a timepiece that is as much a sculpture as it is a mechanism to tell time. It’s an hourglass. This version, built in 2010 (like the others) is made of a single piece of blown borosilicate glass. Instead of sand, millions of nanoballs are used, which produce an extremely accurate 60-minute interval when the hourglass is turned.

From top: Ikepod Megapode, 2005, Ikepod Hemipode, 2003. Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

In addition, there are two watches from Ikepod, a 2003 version of the Hemipode chronograph, which also provides a second time zone display, and a 2005 version of the Megapode watch, also a chronograph with dual time capabilities and a circular slide rule display.

All of the timepieces are from the collection of Adam Lindemann, a New York entrepreneur, avid art collector and partner in Ikepod.

The exhibit itself features many of the Australian-born, London-based designer’s domestic products inside an abstracted 2,000-squarefoot house and garage. It will run till April 28 in the Collab Gallery on first floor of the museum’s Perelman Building.

Below is the hourglass at work during a promotional film by Ikepod.



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Audemars Piguet, Swarovski and Gemfields Woo Art Lovers At Art Basel Miami Beach

An aerial view of the “Curiosity” exhibit, commissioned by Audemars Piguet for Art Basel Miami Beach.

Luxury brands like to be where the wealthy mingle which leads them to support events like the recently concluded Art Basel Miami Beach. Among the companies jockeying for a marketing advantage by associating with the finest works in modern and contemporary art were Swiss luxury watch manufacturer, Audemars Piguet, luxury crystal manufacturer, Swarovski and colored gemstone, mining and marketing company, Gemfields.

A closer view of the “Curiosity” installation. Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

Audemars Piguet has been out front in its support of Art Basel. In May, the company announced that it has signed on as a “Global Associate Partner” with its three fairs in Basel, Switzerland, Miami Beach and Hong Kong.

A close look at the "snow" covering the chalet and the drawing of the wood grain. Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

In Miami, the company partnered with contemporary Parisian art gallery Galerie Perrotin by presenting a new site-specific work by French artist duo Kolkoz. The installation, titled “Curiosity,” came in the form of floating snow covered Swiss Chalet placed off the pier of the Miami Marine Stadium on Virginia Key.

The graffiti-filled site has been closed for more than 20 years and at first glance didn’t seem like a suitable place for an art installation befitting a luxury watch brand. However, it turns out that was one of the reasons the site on nearby Virginia Key was chosen. The other was the water and the heat of a typical South Florida day, which also contrasts with the snowy winter scene. The “snow-covered” chalet and pier from a distance appears to just pop up out of the water. Up close it’s easy to see that the pier is covered in a white fabric while the “chalet” is an inflatable house similar to an inflatable play station for children.

Clever and playful, this installation provides a proper setting in a number of ways. It alludes to Audemars Piguet’s wintry home in the Vallée du Joux and it gives focus to the marine stadium. The stadium, which was forced to shut down following the destruction of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, is being slated for a complete renovation.

The watch brand also had a large display of its watches in the Art Basel Miami beach “Collectors’ Lounge,” which included a retrospective of its Royal Oak watch.

An art collaboration with Brazilian architect and designer Guilherme Torres and Swarovski Crystal Palace.

In the contemporary art world South America is hot and Brazil is the epicenter of this hotness. Taking advantage of this, Swarovski Crystal Palace—a program created by the crystal company where it collaborates with artists, architects and designers to create works of art with Swarovski crystal components—teamed with Brazilian architect Guilherme Torres to create the roots of a Mangrove tree in an installation titled “Mangue Groove” that focuses on conservation for Design Miami, a contemporary art show held alongside Art Basel Miami Beach.

The installation takes the form of an abstract diagram that describes the division of spaces into cells with corresponding focal points, combined with the mangrove-root imagery. The artwork used design angled structures of acrylic tubes filled with amber-colored Swarovski crystals and illuminated from within by LEDs. The metal joints of the structures are covered with dodecahedron-shaped wooden caps. These “root” structures, which Torres wanted to look “as if they were made of crystals,” are set into shallow pools of water, against a backdrop of projections of an Amazonian sunset.

Torres used the 2014 arrival in Brazil of Swarovski Waterschool, a project that teaches children about water conservation. Water is a key component in the manufacture of Swarovski’s crystals, as the theme. However, he said he didn’t want to make obvious references to it.

Gemfields made its presence known not with an art installation but with a movie project titled, “React to Film,” by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The emerald and now amethyst mining and marketing company sponsored an event at the outside orchid gardens of the Delano Hotel (still cool after all these years). The event featured three five-minute documentaries of three groundbreaking modern artists, John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, and David Hockney, by young filmmakers, Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, Lance Accord and Lucy Walker.

The event gave Gemfields the opportunity to show its own promotional film of its Kagem emerald mine in Zambia, starring its ambassador, Mila Kunis. It provided an opportunity for a company that owns the Fabergé luxury brand and commissions one-of-a-kind jewelry from internationally known designers to associate its company with great artists.

Assistant Editor Maria Ling contributed to this story.

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Vacheron Constantin Shares the Same Values as Matisse

Hugues de Pins of Vacheron Constantin addresses guests at the preview of a new Matisse exhibit at the Met. Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

Vacheron Constantin has a long relationship with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In support of this relationship the Swiss luxury watch brand is sponsoring the exhibit, Matisse: In Search of True Painting, which examines the process of how the world renowned artist, Henri Matisse, created his art and developed his skills by producing multiple works of the same scene in different painting styles.

Hugues de Pins, North American president of Vacheron Constantin, hosted a preview tour of the exhibit on November 29. Rebecca Rabinow, curator in the Museum’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, led a 20-minute tour of the exhibition where she detailed highlights among the 49 paintings. The exhibit will run till March 17, 2013.

Rabinow explained that Matisse took inspiration from traditional paintings and the work of his contemporaries. He painted the same scene twice in the different styles of those he was studying. Over the years his technique of painting the same scene twice produced wildly different affects that was not in the style of others.

Young Sailor I (left) and Young Sailor II provided a bold example of how Henri Matisse approached his work. Photo credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art

For example, his painting of a local teenager in Collioure, France, (pictured above) had all the hallmarks of the bright and expressive colors from his Fauvism period, a style of painting that he helped to create. He then painted a second version of the same image on an identically sized canvas, this time using flat color to produce a drastically different effect. Unsure of his new direction, Matisse told friends that the second painting was by the local postman. The exhibit includes many of these examples throughout his life (in particular two large paintings of a trio of bathers), his use of photography during his later years, and his paintings of a well-known Italian model named Laurette.

The exhibition gives the impression of a painter who was constantly getting better at his craft, even after the age where one might think he was past his prime.

“Matisse, in Search of True Painting I think corresponds very well with our company,” de Pins said during a lunch at the museum following the tour. “He was always looking, searching for perfection, excellence…. Our designers, our craftsmen, our watchmakers work in this spirit.”

De Pin said that even with the reputation Matisse had, it meant nothing to him as he continued to struggle with creating exceptional work. “You really need to keep on searching for excellence and perfection,” he said.

The event also gave a chance for de Pins to introduce Hyla Bauer as Vacheron Constantin’s new head of public relations in North America to the press members in attendance. Bauer was formerly the executive fashion editor of Conde Nast Traveler.

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