AnthonyTsai
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Audemars Piguet kicks off the 2015 Art Basel shows during Art Basel in Hong Kong
Swiss Haute Horology brand Audemars Piguet celebrated the announcement of Ruijun Shen as the guest curator for the Audemars Piguet Art Commission in 2016, and the unveiling of their updated lounge in the Collectors Lounge at Art Basel in Hong Kong, with a special evening reception on Friday, 13 March 2015. The late night party was attended by over 500 guests and was held in honour of curator Ruijun Shen as well as Mathieu Lehanneur, renowned French designer who created Audemars Piguet’s new space for the Collectors Lounge entitled “MINERAL LAB”, and Alexandre Joly who designed a bespoke Audemars Piguet sound work for the updated version of the lounge. Renowned film and television actress, Sandra Ng, and distinguished Hong Kong actor Louis Koo attended the event. Sandra and Louis also visited the Audemars Piguet lounge at the fair and were given a tour of the beautiful historic and contemporary women’s timepiece from 1900 - 2015 displayed.
AUDEMARS PIGUET KICKS OFF THE 2015 ART BASEL SHOWS WITH A SUCCESSFUL PROGRAMME FOR ART BASEL IN HONG KONG
From top to bottom, left to right: Olivier Audemars, Louis Koo, Sandra Ng, François-Henry Bennahmias and David von Gunten / guests entering the party in the California Tower / DJ and trumpet player entertaining / Louis Koo and Sandra Ng
François-Henry Bennahmias, CEO of Audemars Piguet, welcomed guests to the event saying: ‘Art has always been an important source of inspiration for Audemars Piguet. The collaborations between contemporary art and the superb artistry and technical mastery of watchmaking continue to extend, and stronger connections between the two worlds are forged each year. François also thanked Art Basel for the successful and ongoing partnership with Audemars Piguet.
Guests were welcomed to last night’s event to celebrate Audemars Piguet’s activities at Art Basel’s show in Hong Kong 2015. With curator Ruijun Shen and artist Alexandre Joly in attendance, the reception was held across two floors at the prestigious California Tower. The event included an atmosphere created by décor inspired by Lehanneur’s eco-living wall and the accompanying bespoke sound work by Alexandre Joly.
On Friday, 13 March 2015, renowned actress Sandra Ng and distinguished Hong Kong actor Louis Koo were welcomed to the Audemars Piguet lounge and given a tour of the beautiful historic and contemporary women’s timepiece from 1900 - 2015 displayed on the stand. Sandra picked out a beautiful white gold and diamond Millenary 5201 full-set timepiece and Louis wore a Royal Oak Offshore Selfwinding Tourbillon Chronograph.
Ruijun Shen, the second guest curator for the Audemars Piguet Art Commission, will work with a selected artist to be announced in early 2016, to create a new work later that year. Shen, a renowned artist and curator, has previously exhibited in and curated shows at The Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum, China, Guangdong Times Museum, China, Queens Museum, New York and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Bringing her experience and expertise in Asian art to the second Art Commission project, Audemars Piguet are excited to work alongside Shen to support the creation of one new major artwork by an emerging or midcareer artist, which will be unveiled at the Art Basel show in Hong Kong in 2016. Renowned art world figure Marc-Olivier Wahler, founder and director of Chalet Society Paris, is the first guest curator for the Audemars Piguet Art Commission and Swiss artist and composer Robin Meier has been selected as the first artist. Meier’s work for the new Art Commission will be unveiled to coincide with Art Basel in Basel in 2015.
Audemars Piguet’s updated stand in the Collectors Lounge at the Art Basel show in Hong Kong in 2015 is inspired by Audemars Piguet’s home in the Vallée de Joux, Switzerland. The stand entitled ‘MINERAL LAB’, created by leading French designer Mathieu Lehanneur appeared in an altered form, as its design concept shifted seasons from winter to spring. The updated 2015 edition also includes an eco-living wall, as well as a newly-commissioned sound installation by French artist Alexandre Joly and an exhibition of Audemars Piguet’s exceptional women’s heritage timepieces from 1900 – 2015.
Joly’s work predominantly combines the visual with sound, often creating site-specific installations which explore the sensory, imaginary, aesthetic and ethical relationships that man holds with nature, technology and the environment. Within his practice, Joly mixes sounds recorded in natural settings including weather, landscapes, insects and frogs, and mixes these with electronic sounds and frequencies to enforce sound as a material and separate entity, while referencing the visual scene it accompanies. Alexandre Joly recorded the natural sounds from around Le Brassus as well as from the Audemars Piguet manufacture and museum. Fusing these natural and industrial sounds, Joly created a bespoke Audemars Piguet sound which was played alongside the eco-living wall on the Audemars Piguet stand for Art Basel 2015, complementing the design concept of Mathieu Lehanneur.
Audemars Piguet and Art
Audemars Piguet has always sought to integrate creative vision with superb artistry and technical mastery. There are many parallels between contemporary art and the artistry, craft, technical mastery and innovative approach at the heart of Audemars Piguet’s timepieces. In 2013, Audemars Piguet extended its innovation and spirit of independence by becoming a global associate partner of Art Basel, the world’s premier contemporary art fair. For the Art Basel 2013 shows, Audemars Piguet commissioned new work by British photographer Dan Holdsworth and worked with Galerie Perrotin on ‘Curiosity’, a pop-up installation by French art duo Kolkoz for Art Basel in Miami Beach. At Art Basel’s May 2014 show in Hong Kong, Audemars Piguet unveiled a new booth in the Collectors’ Lounge created by leading French designer Mathieu Lehanneur as well as a new panoramic film by Austrian video artist Kurt Hentschläger. Varying with each new location, Lehanneur’s lounge concept will be presented at Art Basel’s shows in 2014 and 2015. In May 2014, Audemars Piguet announced the Audemars Piguet Art Commission as a key piece in their expanding activities in the sphere of contemporary art. For Art Basel in Miami Beach, December 2014, Audemars Piguet partnered with the Peabody Essex Museum to present Theo Jansen’s kinetic ‘Strandbeests.’ In connection to this, Audemars Piguet also displayed the photographic tributes to the Dutch artist and his creations by Lena Herzog. These photographs were displayed at Audemars Piguet’s innovative new beachside lounge in honour of her new book, published by TASCHEN, Strandbeest: The Dream machines of Theo Jansen.
About the Audemars Piguet Art Commission
The Audemars Piguet Art Commission is an innovative project which supports artists in the creation of works of exceptional complexity, precision and experiential impact on an ongoing, annual basis. The newly commissioned art works will be presented to the public to coincide with Art Basel’s editions. As part of the Commission, Audemars Piguet will provide the necessary resources for selected artists and secure access to advanced tools, craft expertise, or sophisticated technology to realize important new creative projects.
About Art Basel
The third edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong will feature 233 premier galleries, from 37 countries and territories from Asia, Europe, the Americas and the rest of the world and more than 3,000 artists, ranging from young emerging artists to the Modern masters from both Asia and the West from the 20th and 21st centuries. With around 50 percent of galleries having exhibition spaces in Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, Art Basel underlines its commitment to showcasing the best art from the region. The show will include for the second time a Film sector, curated by Li Zhenhua, and hosted in collaboration with the Hong Kong Arts Centre. Alexie Glass-Kantor will curate Encounters, the sector for large-scale sculptural and installation pieces, for the first time this year. Art Basel in Hong Kong, whose Lead Partner is UBS, will take place from Sunday, March 15, to Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center.
About Mathieu Lehanneur
Mathieu Lehanneur is a French designer at the forefront of the international design scene. Innovatively, he combines design, science, art and technology as poetic-communicative components to create humanistic projects and achieve maximum welfare for human beings.
Graduated from ENSCI-Les Ateliers |'École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle, his works are part of the permanent collections at the MoMa (New York/US), Centre Pompidou (Paris/FR), SFMoMa (San Francisco/US), the foundation of contemporary art Frac Ile de France (Paris/FR) and Design Museum (Gent/Belgium).
Mathieu Lehanneur also designs for brands such as Veuve Clicquot, Issey Miyake, Christofle, Cartier, Poltrona Frau, among others, with the same proficiency as he creates spectacular projects for Saint Hilaire Church (Melle/France), the Diaconesses Hospital (Paris/FR), or the new hotspot of the Parisian scene, Electric.
About Alexandre Joly
Born in 1977 in France, Alexandre Joly lives and works in Geneva. Alexandre’s work is strongly tied to the creation of sounds. Whether it is based around installed devices or performances, he explores the possible interactions between the material, the object and the sound. For several years Alexandre Joly has been using miniature speakers, called “piezos”, in many of his artworks. He presents sounds recorded in natural settings (weather, landscapes, insects, frogs etc.) and mixes these with electronic sounds and frequencies.
About Ruijun Shen
Ruijun Shen is a curator at the Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou, China. She has curated many successful shows including ‘Shift: Exhibition on Young American Artists Creating On-site Artwork in China’ (2011), ‘Pulse Reaction – An Exchange Project on Art Practice’ (2012), ‘Gentle Wave in Your Eye Fluid- A Pipilotti Rist Solo Exhibition’ ( 2013), and ‘Polit-Sheer-Form!’ (2014) at the Queens Museum in New York. Shen has also co-curated many exhibitions including ‘Landscape: the Actual, the Virtual and the Possible?’ (2014) at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and at the 6th Chengdu Biennale (2013).
Shen has been influential in the Asian art scene for many years and initiated projects such as ‘Open Studio,’ which began in 2012 as an artist residency and exhibition program funding projects by three chosen national and international artists each year. Shen is also an active contributor to many art journals including LEAP, GALLERY and Art Asia Pacific and has been a member of various committees including the nominated committee for the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA), which celebrates Chinese artists and art critics who show outstanding achievement in terms of artistic creation, analysis and critique.
Shen studied painting at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou, China in 2000, at Montclair State University, Montclair, in 2004 and at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 2007.
This message has been edited by AnthonyTsai on 2015-03-16 09:21:33
