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Winter auction season is well underway here in New York City, and this time the buzz feels more evenly spread out than last year. The anticipation lies in the variety of offerings rather than a single rockstar lot– and the focus on a wider landscape of watches is a welcome change for many.
This weekend sees the opening chapter of a new initiative called TimeForArt, created by the New York non-profit Swiss Institute. A first of its kind, the auction was established as an aid to support contemporary art and will be held as part of the Phillips New York Watch Auction: SEVEN, this coming weekend, December 10 and 11. The Swiss Institute has called on 17 watch brands to participate in the benefit.
Three previously existing timepieces were donated, including the Hermès H08 Limited Edition for Hodinkee (numbered 100/100), and the rest were all produced as "pièces uniques,'' specifically for the auction. This initiative sees watches conceptualized to be art from the beginning, not just a functioning watch but a piece of art in itself.
"The Swiss Institute's focus is to show emerging artists from around the world," said Mojdeh Cutter, TimeForArt's Managing Director. "Our name is a little misleading. We were founded by Swiss expats living in New York who wanted to promote Swiss art culture here. Over the past few decades we've expanded our scope. Now we show about 40 percent Swiss artists and 60 percent artists from around the world."
The sole mission of the Swiss Institute, which is located in the East Village and offers free entry to all of its exhibits, is to support contemporary emerging art; whether that's young artists setting out to build a career or older artists who have yet to receive the recognition by the wider art community.
Four + One Featuring Mojdeh Cutter
With the pandemic imposing severe financial constraints on any kind of philanthropic activity in the art space, Cutter and her associate Simon Castets – previously Director of the Swiss Institute and now Executive Chair – set about finding a new way to create funding. The miserable state of affairs for the museum world happened to coincide with the boom of the watch market in 2020 and so they put two and two together.
"In March of 2020, together with the rest of the planet, the art world came to a standstill," Castets said. "What was most worrisome in our case was the understandable pause in philanthropic support and its immediate repercussions in US museums, especially the smaller ones: There was a 40 percent dip in average income for them, more than twice as severe as for larger ones. The art world and the watch world are intrinsically connected by their creative pursuits. What we're aiming at is to further this connection exactly through the prism of creativity in order to foster in-depth dialogue and unexpected results, with each party gaining a deeper understanding of the other's way of thinking. It's a long-term project."
There are 17 lots in total, two of which were commissioned artist collaborations by the Swiss Institute and serve as the blueprint for what they hope to achieve in future auctions (which will now be held bi-anually). One is the Arnold & Son "HM Swiss Institute by Matt Copson" – Copson is a young London-based artist who is known for laser installations and focuses on light and shadow play. The other is the Urwerk UR-102, made with artist Cooper Jacoby, a sculptor who incorporates innovative treatments of materials like nickel, copper, rubber, and silicone.
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All of the lots offer something unique to the auction, with my favorites including the DeBethune hourglass made in collaboration with industrial designer Marc Newson and the HYT Hastroid Rainbow Nebula, a fun and completely different take on the rainbow trend.
"We talked with each brand as if they were an artist themselves, without forcing a format onto them or any sort of specific criteria," Cutter said. "It was an invitation for each brand to think about the most creative aspects of their watchmaking house."
Paul Boutros, Head of Americas for Phillips Watches, who are hosting the lots in their sale, spoke with me about TimeForArt and the opportunity an initiative like this presents for both art and watch collectors, alike. I was curious to get his take as I commented on the chasm that seems to exist between the art and watch worlds. "Watches aren't pieces of art in the fundamental definition of what is art," he said, "but it can expose art collectors to the world of fine watchmaking that we love so much."
All of the proceeds, including buyer's premiums, will go directly to the Swiss Institute to fund exhibitions, public programs, education and community engagement workshops in New York and beyond. "Kudos to the Swiss institute for motivating these important watch brands to do this," Boutros said. "We as a community want and hope that contemporary art collectors will view watches in a different light – and get introduced to fine watches as a collectible."
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For more information on TimeForArt, visit their website.
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