American contemporary visual artist Daniel Arsham has an extensive portfolio of work that defies easy categorisation.
But a frequently recurring theme appears to be time.
It makes sense then, that his latest design is a luxury timepiece for Swiss watch brand Hublot: the Hublot MP-17 Meca-10 Arsham Splash Titanium Sapphire.
The Splash is the second creation from the Arsham-Hublot partnership.
The first was the Arsham Droplet pocket watch, released in 2024.
There is a Singapore connection in the genesis of this collaboration, as it was Michael Tay, group managing director of Singapore-based luxury watch retailer The Hour Glass, who connected the two parties.
“His thinking was: There’s so much reference to time in my work, it would be a natural progression for me to design a watch,” says Arsham, 45, during group and individual interviews at Raffles Hotel, Singapore.
“I’m interested in interrogating our perception of time – where we fit within it, how we look at how we catalogue it,” he adds.
One striking example of Arsham’s artistic meditations on time can be found in his 2023 collection of work inspired by the Star Wars space opera franchise (1977 to present).
The collection included a life-size Stormtrooper sculpture made of minerals such as selenite, blue calcite and hydrostone.
This was intentionally crafted to appear as though it had been ravaged and weathered by the elements over a long period of time.
More recently and closer to home, Arsham created two bronze sculptures of Singapore’s first prime minister, the late Lee Kuan Yew, for the centenary of his birth.
Both were on display at private members club Mandala Club in Bukit Pasoh Road.
“I thought it was a very interesting historical project to capture and
document the founder of a nation.
“Younger people make up a significant part of my audience, so there was also an intention to bring them into this history as well,” says Arsham.
He describes his first design for Hublot, the Droplet, as unconventional: “It’s not fully asymmetrical, it’s very large and very heavy – all ideas that run counter
to traditional watchmaking.”
His new MP-17 Meca-10 Arsham Splash Titanium Sapphire carries on this asymmetrical approach, with its irregularly shaped frosted bezel.
But unlike the Droplet, it is light and compact-looking.
Arsham says: “There are certain practical qualities about a wristwatch that are impossible to get away from, and one of them is comfort.
Crazy shapes aside, it has to be a durable object that is going to be comfortable to wear.”
The design itself is an exploration of time from a different perspective – capturing the fleeting moment in which a drop of water hits a solid surface.
The bezel, which is made of sapphires, is shaped such that the central dial appears to have been hit by a splash of water.
Arsham describes his role in the collaboration as one of intentional disruption.
“My job there is to go into their factory in Switzerland” − which he says looks like a laboratory, sterile but full of failed and successful experiments − “and mess things up.”
He says he has not had pushback on his two designs for the brand.
But executing some of his visual ideas required some creative back-and-forth with Hublot’s horologists.
“A great deal of traditional watchmaking is about the practical and functional qualities of the machinery.
“They are not used to designing with a parameter like asymmetry in mind, so there are some complexities in actually translating it to the physical object of the watch,” says Arsham.
But failure is part and parcel of horology, he notes.
“My guess is that they’re losing two out of 10 of the sapphire dials that they’re cutting, due to outright breakage or some other imperfection.”
However, inspiration can be found in failure.
The artist adds. “There was a whole area at the Swiss factory where they keep their ‘errors’; the broken pieces or things that didn’t work.
“That, for me, is the most interesting area to look at.
“Can I take something in that accident or failure, and build something new off that?”
Meanwhile, fans can expect that time will continue to be a focus in Arsham’s work.
He notes that both the Droplet pocket watch and the Splash wristwatch are “ultra-futuristic” in their look and aesthetic.
But he may take a more retrospective approach for his next potential collaboration with Hublot.
“It would be interesting to go in the opposite direction and think about very minimalist watch designs that use historical materials or shapes that were present in the past,” he says.
The 42mm wristwatch is limited to 99 pieces and available at Hublot boutiques. — STRAITS TIMES
