Over the next two months, The Hour Glass will be premiering a series of short films on nine of the world’s leading creatives and artisans, including MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser, British architect Sir David Adjaye, American artist Daniel Arsham, Australian industrial designer Marc Newson, and head of design firm nendo, Oki Sato. Commissioned by The Hour Glass, The Lives of Artists profile the journey of these cultural wunderkinds and document their dedication to their craft.
The Hour Glass’ fundamental mission as a specialist watch retailer is to advance watch culture by celebrating the patrimony and tradition of the watchmaking arts. As an organisation that has devoted its entirety to this industry and to celebrate its anniversary, The Hour Glass pays tribute to its mission by beginning a conversation on how watches and its makers intrinsically belong to the cultural milieu of contemporary art and design, providing a new point of departure for watchmaking.
These short films follow on The Hour Glass’ Then Now Beyond contemporary art exhibition that ended earlier this year. That curated selection of commissioned objets d’art from four designers bridged the gap between the watch and contemporary art, personified the very mission The Hour Glass seeks to disseminate. All four designers are also featured in the new series, but the debut short film will feature Maximilian Büsser, founder of the avant-garde boutique watchmaker MB&F. The portrait will premiere on YouTube on 22 April at 1200 GMT. The Hour Glass will also host a live Q&A between its Group Managing Director Michael Tay and Büsser on The Hour Glass’ Instagram stories the same day at 1230 GMT, and shall be discussing what the future has in store for MB&F. Questions from the watch community in the leadup are welcome – just leave one in the comments section of the premiere page on YouTube.
The other short films will be released on a weekly basis, and will feature Sir David Adjaye (29 April), Rexhep Rexhepi, founder of watchmaker AkriviA (6 May), Daniel Arsham (13 May), Dutch designer Wieki Somers (20 May), independent watchmaker Roger W Smith (27 May), Marc Newson (3 June), Oki Sato (10 June), and Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei, co-founders of watch brand Urwerk (17 June).
