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Home Archive 2009 Swatch and contemporary artists build a playground for the future

Swatch and contemporary artists build a playground for the future

The Swatch CreArt Collection adds a new chapter to the story of Swatch and Art. Like many great relationships, this one began in Paris, where the first Art Special was launched at the Pompidou Centre in 1985. That first encounter sparked a series of innovative joint projects with artists and fashion designers from around the world.

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Swatch’s playful and creative approach to the arts continues to inspire the most innovative and exciting of today’s – and tomorrow’s – artists and designers. The Swiss fashion watch and jewellery maker has asked four internationally known artists to contribute to the exciting story of Swatch and Art by creating several new watches to enrich the Swatch CreArt Collection.

New York City based ‘Urban Primitivist’ Billy The Artist; noted painter, sculptor and writer Ted Scapa; the prolific graphic artist and designer Matthew Langille, and French street painter and rapper Grems have together created a total of twelve new works for ‘the world’s smallest canvas’. The artists and their remarkable creations are presented below.

Billy the Artist

Billy the Artist believes in creating his own reality, and his work is delightful evidence of his success in doing so. Billy captures the energy and power of the city around him in what he calls «Urban Primitive» reality – a kaleidoscope of puzzle-like images that celebrate the diversity and joy of the human spirit. His bold, distinctive style moves easily from art galleries to commercial venues and from small-scale projects to enormous urban murals. Everywhere he goes, Billy turns the world upside down: while others turn reality into art, Billy makes art a reality.

Billy the Artist – GZ204, GZ205S

GZ204, AFTERDARK

Making his mark with unmistakable style and panache, Billy the Artist brings his art to Everyman’s wrist. The top folio strap of this artful Gent presents the dynamic black and white story with fluid line and high-contrast graphics. The story moves through the streets in the hours after dark from the strap to the plastic case and on to the black and white dial, where the graphics transform the design into a face. There’s a nod to the masters of modern art in the look and feel of this playful model, but Billy’s image stands on its own, contemporary art for the world’s smallest canvas. A white hour hand, a black minute hand and a slim white seconds hand mark the time.

GZ205S, MORNING GLOW

Billy the Artist takes off the gloves: colour rules. The top folio strap of this brash Gent makes way for colour as the hero. Black ink fences colour in, colour jumps the fence, exploding off the wrist in red, blue, purple, green… and a solid blue plastic case. A bright, funny, loud and slightly sceptical face looks up from the multicoloured dial and sends the eye back to the strap to discover more faces hidden in the colour-puzzle. There’s no need for numerals or indices; blue hour and minute hands and a slim black seconds hand mark the time. Billy the Artist’s Morning Glow will be made available in a Limited Edition of 11’111 pieces, in a special sleeve.

Ted Scapa

Ted Scapa has spent a lifetime playing with paint and creative ideas. Born in Holland, he has adopted Switzerland as his home country since 1962. As an artist he has been writing, making and editing books about art for 35 years, he has also been working as a painter, sculptor and designer of art objects ranging from rugs to lamps. The four watches Ted has created for Swatch testify to his love of colour and creative endeavour. Swatch shares his enthusiasms and is happy to celebrate the playfulness at the heart of Ted Scapa’s art.

Ted Scapa – GZ200, GZ201, GZ202S, ZUMZ100

GZ200, PINK RIDE

Riding ’round the clock: the pink top folio strap of this playful Gent shows a diverse crowd of snowboarders drawn in black. Each one is a live performer, caught in the middle of a trick, a stunt, a flying leap through the air. These black-line performers extend their show to the solid pink plastic case and pink dial, where five live boarders race down the slopes or reach for the sky as they fly. White squares and round white dots mark the hours. In the absence of all numerals, white hour and minute hands and a slim white seconds hand mark the time.

GZ201, BIG RIDE

Top performers hone their tricks and train for the ride of a lifetime. The white top folio strap of this exuberant Gent presents a playground for the boarder crowd. Decked out in bold colours, they ride from the strap up over the solid white plastic case and land on the snow-white dial. Five performers – red, yellow, green, brown and blue – zoom ’round the clock and around the dial. Coloured squares and dots indicate the hours, and in the absence of all numerals, white hour and minute hands and a slim black seconds hand mark the time.

GZ202S, WINNER RIDE

Snowboarders make the world go round on sunlit slopes of gold. The top folio plastic strap of this dynamic Gent presents a crowd of colourful boarders performing playful tricks and turns on snowy slopes turned gold. The case in clear transparent plastic with gold print on top extends the sunlit slope and its performers and joins it to the golden dial, where five black-line boarders dressed in bold colours pose in a ring around the dial. Squares and dots in different colours indicate the hours, and in the absence of all numerals, polished metal hour and minute hands and a slim black seconds hand mark the time. Ted Scapa’s Winner Ride will be made available in a Limited Edition of 999 pieces.

SUMZ100, THREESIXTY RIDE

Extreme boarders fly through time and space to land on snowy slopes. The white silicone strap of this rambunctious Jelly in Jelly Snowpass has become an outdoor stage under snow, filled with black-line snowboarders cavorting all day long. The solid white plastic case holds a convex plastic glass over the white dial. A new technology known as ‘glass decoration’ has enabled Swatch to extend the area available to the artist to include the inner surface of the watch glass. The artist has used this innovative technique to show five black-line snowboarders caught in mid-performance against the white ground. Four black square dots on the white dial indicate hours 3, 6, 9 and 12. In the absence of all numerals, black hour and minute hands and a slim black seconds hand mark the time.

Matthew Langille

Matthew Langille is a prolific young artist based in New York City, where he puts his boundless creative energy to work for global fashion houses and design firms. He studied glass-blowing as a child, art installation in France, and ceramics and life drawing in the United States before turning to print-making and drawing in college. His clever, witty imagery exhibits a distinctively light-hearted style that sets him apart from the crowd. Matthew continues to develop as an artist while creating images, graphic and text designs, patterns and crayon drawings in the ever-changing space where art and fashion meet.

Matthew Langille – GS136, GS137, GW149

GS136, SNUGGLE BUNCH

A bunch of snuggly teddy-bears looking for a home in a woman’s heart. The light blue silicone strap of this heart-warming Gent presents a colourful collection of cartoon teddies inked in black and filled with different shades of soft pastels. The light blue transparent plastic case frames a white dial featuring Arabic numerals at all hours, drawn in black ink with a childish hand. Pale pink hour and light blue minute hands and a super-thin black seconds hand mark the time.

GS137, FLOATING AWAY

Fly away into the clouds on a blue-sky day. The top and bottom folio plastic strap of this airy Gent shows colourful printed numbers dangling from parachute clouds against a bright blue sky. The cloud and coloured number design extends to the solid blue plastic case that frames a white dial. Printed on the dial are hand-drawn Arabic numerals of varying sizes, shapes and colours. Rounded red hour and yellow minute hands with squelette dots at their tips and a thin black seconds hand mark the time.

GW149, GERMAHOLIC

A scary green monster screams with fright. The yellow top and bottom folio strap of this amusing Gent replicates a green-skinned cartoon monster drawn by a childlike hand in black ink; the eyes give the creature a worried look; sharp teeth frame a gaping pink and dark pink mouth; claws appear at the tip of outstretched arms and on the toes. The large version of the monster stretches from the 12 o’clock side beneath the solid white plastic case (unseen) to the 6 o’clock side of the strap where four smaller monsters appear; all appear to be identical and have a squiggly ’m’ on their yellow bellies. The little monster makes a final appearance at the centre of the solid yellow dial, surrounded by hand-drawn black Arabic numerals at all hours. White hour and minute hands with small cut-outs at the tips and a slim black seconds hand mark the time.

Grems

Grems is a young French street painter, rapper, hip hop artist and designer. A man of many colours and voices, his art is provocative, creative, trendy and fashionable. His artistic signature features colourful clusters of hand-drawn signs and lettering, labels, bold graphics and graffiti. A rebel with a cause, Grems takes street painting to a higher level, expanding his canvases from walls to subways, showroom windows and branded fashion gear. His cartoon figures slide through the streets with style and grace, transforming public space into open air galleries and street art into joie de vivre.

Grems – GW146, GB 239, SUJZ111

GW146, SHOW YOUR MOVES

Think you’re good? Polish your steps before you show your stuff in the street. The white top folio strap of this inventive Gent backs a red cartoon dancer in a how-to manual of dance moves leading up to the solid white plastic case. The white dial features the same red dancer from the strap, poised in a bold, expressive stance with his hands raised to the sky. In the absence of all numerals and indices, red hour and minute hands with large arrow-head tips and superlite white infills and a slim black seconds hand mark the time.

GB239, MOVING BEAT

A fantastic celebration of street painters and their art. This explosively colourful Gent has a top matt folio strap resembling a vertical stripe cut from a wall of urban street art. The artful dancers, graffiti and bold graphics extend from the strap across the printed solid black plastic case to the multicoloured printed dial. In the absence of numerals and indices, bright arrow-head skeleton red hour and minute hands with light orange highlights mark the time.

SUJZ111, STREET CLUB

Grems moves his art from the streets to the wrist with this striking Swatch Jelly in Jelly. The matt black plastic strap carries a bold montage of hand-drawn labels in a wonderfully inventive variety of styles. Its colourful array of tags, graphic signs and signals extends across the solid black plastic case to the black dial, where a street vendor’s store-on-wheels presides. Provocative, creative, trendy and fashionable, this is the Swatch The Club watch for 2009 – a perfect expression of the characteristic Swatch joie de vivre. White hour and minute hands and a yellow seconds hand complete the design and mark the time.

For further information, please contact:

Swatch PR International, Marion Leuenberger

Phone: +41 32 343 98 19
Fax: +41 32 343 96 69,
E-mail: marion.leuenberger@swatch.com
www.swatch.com

The Billy the Artist watches (289 KB)
The Ted Scapa watches (339 KB)
The Matthew Langille watches (291 KB)
The Grems watches (319 KB)

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Swatch and contemporary artists build a playground for the future