Swiss Haute Horlogerie Manufacture Audemars Piguet celebrated the unveiling of The Art of Listening: Under Water, a new public site-specific sound composition by Norwegian contemporary artist Jana Winderen during Art Basel in Miami Beach. Located in the Collins Park Rotunda, the installation brings awareness to the ocean’s increasingly fragile ecosystem and represents the artist’s most recent investigation on the environmental impact of human-created sounds on our planet.
Audemars Piguet marked the celebration of the artwork’s debut in the Collins Park Rotunda with a private press walkthrough and intimate brunch. Led by Susan Simmons, Audemars Piguet Foundation’s General Secretary and Audemars Piguet Associate Curator Denis Pernet, the walkthrough provided guests with an inspiring insight into the Manufacture’s collaboration with Winderen and the latest resultant work, which was completed onsite in Miami by intermixing sounds from local waterways and undersea life. Visitors experienced the work first-hand by listening to the recorded sounds of the oceanic environment and reflecting on the ways in which human activity is constantly interfering with this delicate ecosystem.
The composition discloses sounds specific to the Miami harbour area, the Barents Sea and the Tropical Oceans exposing the constant presence of human noise that pervades these oceanic environments. The work was produced in conjunction with long-time collaborator Tony Myatt and is free and open to the public throughout Miami Art Week.
The Art of Listening: Under Water bears strong resonance with a theme present in many of Audemars Piguet’s artistic projects, raising environmental awareness around the world. When asked about her interest in working beneath the surface of the water to source sounds for her compositions, Winderen replied: “I have always been drawn to the underwater environment since I was quite young. There is so much life and activity within it, almost all of which is entirely inaccessible to humans. Recording these sounds offers a way to understand the plants and animals beneath the ocean as well as how these life forms respond to the inescapable human activities which surround them. When you listen to the composition, it’s impossible to decipher the difference between the two, the natural and unnatural, which I hope brings pause and contemplation.”
Additionally, Audemars Piguet presented Du Petit Risoud aux profondeurs du Lac de Joux in this year’s Collectors Lounge at Art Basel in Miami Beach, Winderen’s first site-specific commission for Audemars Piguet which followed a two-part residency in the Vallée de Joux in early 2019. The work, which made its debut at Art Basel in Basel (June 2019), also examines the human impact on our environment, bringing listeners on a journey through the unique ecosystem of this remote valley by uncovering the heightened sound of civilisation heard throughout the surrounding forests and the depths of the Lac de Joux.
The Lounge also represented the latest chapter in Fernando Mastrangelo’s collaboration with Audemars Piguet. Mastrangelo first unveiled his Lounge design during Art Basel in Hong Kong (March 2019), evolving the project for this year’s edition of Art Basel in Miami Beach by displaying bespoke furniture, design cases and walls inspired by the natural landscape of the Vallée de Joux, precisely crafted after his visit to this mountainous region.
Both Winderen’s and Mastrangelo’s commissioned works presented in Miami Beach provided viewers with intimate glimpses into the multitude of ways in which artists creatively interpret the world around us.
“To break the rules, you must first master them.”
About Jana Winderen
Norwegian sound artist Jana Winderen takes her audience on immersive and sensory journeys through our environment. By revealing the small and most inaccessible sounds of our environment, the artist appeals to listeners’ emotions, hoping to gain their interest in and respect for our complex world, while raising ecological awareness.
Winderen has graduated from the Fine Art programme at Goldsmiths, University of London and has a background in mathematics, chemistry and fish ecology from the University of Oslo. Since 1992, sound has been at the core of her artistic practice, leading her to travel across Europe, Asia and the Americas to record audio environments and ecosystems hard for humans to access physically and aurally.
For the last 14 years, Winderen has used high-precision and high-quality hydrophones, microphones and ultrasound detectors to record sound from fish, crustaceans and mammals, as well as inaudible sounds such as ultrasounds lying above the range of human hearing, gathered in oceans, rivers, lakes or in other environments inaccessible to the human ear. Winderen uses these natural sounds as source material to compose sound collages for immersive multi-channel sound installations, live concerts, as well as soundtracks for film and dance performances. She releases her work on vinyl, CDs, cassettes and as digital downloads.
Her sound work has been performed in major institutions and public spaces worldwide. Her current projects include the composition Listening with Carp exhibited at Now is the Time – Wuzhen International Art Exhibition in China, as well as Through the Bones presented at the Thailand International Art Biennale in Krabi (2018–2019).
Her multi-channel audio installation Bára, a commission by TBA21–Academy, was shown in 2018 at the exhibition Oceans: Imagining a Tidalectic Worldview, Dubrovnik Museum of Modern Art and at Le Fresnoy: Studio national des arts contemporains. It was also presented as part of Tidalectics, Augarten in Vienna in 2017. Other recent work includes Raft of Ice a permanent temperature interactive sound installation for the US Embassy in Oslo (2018); Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone: From the Barents Sea to Lake Ontario for work of WIND AIR LAND SEA in Toronto (2018); Rats – Secret Soundscapes of the City, commissioned by the Munchmuseum on the Move/NyMusikk in Oslo (2017); Transmission, commissioned by the V-A-C Foundation for Geometry of Now, Moscow (2017); and Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone, a commission for the Sonic Acts Festival (2017), among others. The Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo dedicated an important monographic exhibition to Winderen’s research in collaboration with Tony Myatt, Rungrueng Ramanyah and Palin Ansusinha, from June to August 2019.
Winderen was the recipient of the Golden Nica, Prix Ars Electronica for Digital Musics & Sound Art in 2011. Her work is published by the London-based label Touch, alongside artists including Oren Ambarchi, Fennesz, Phill Niblock, Hildur Gudnadottir. www.janawinderen.com/
About Fernando Mastrangelo
Fernando Mastrangelo is a Brooklyn-based, contemporary artist specialising in sculpture, furniture, architecture and interior design. Inspired by landscapes, people and politics, his sculptural work experiments with forms, materials and content to create a universe in which nature, textures and the human condition are layered and interconnected. Seeing his work as a “relic for our time,” Mastrangelo repurposes natural granular materials like sand, salt and silica, while often addressing ecological issues. Each piece’s form is influenced by the material used and its geographic origins.
Mastrangelo received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle in 2002 and completed his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture in 2004 at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. After his studies, Mastrangelo worked in collaboration with Matthew Barney, before launching his own design studio, now known as FM/S. Located in Brooklyn, his studio has grown over the years to experiment with painting, sculpture, furniture, architecture and interiors, and presents a variety of mediums and collections.
His group and solo works have been exhibited in numerous art fairs and venues including the Collective Design Fair, NYCxDesign, the Sight Unseen Office, the Salone del Mobile in Milan, Art Genève in Switzerland, Art Basel in Miami Beach, the Brooklyn Museum, the Mendes Wood Gallery, the Mike Weiss Gallery, the Neuberger Museum, and the Rossana Orlandi Gallery in Milan.
In 2017, with the next generation of makers in mind, Mastrangelo launched a non-profit organisation, In Good Company, with an annual group exhibition that honours the spirit of creativity by providing a platform for emerging artists and designers to exhibit their work without commercial or creative restraint. To learn more about In Good Company please visit www.igc.design.
About Audemars Piguet
Audemars Piguet is the oldest fine watchmaking manufacturer still in the hands of its founding families (Audemars and Piguet). Since 1875, the company has written some of the finest chapters in the history of Haute Horlogerie, including a number of world firsts. In the Vallée de Joux, at the heart of the Swiss Jura, numerous masterpieces are created in limited series embodying a remarkable degree of horological perfection, including daring sporty models, classic and traditional timepieces, splendid ladies’ jewellery-watches, as well as one-of-a-kind creations.
About Audemars Piguet and Art
Pursuing its commitment to craft, creativity and innovation, Audemars Piguet formed a partnership with Art Basel in 2013, supporting the world’s premier contemporary art shows in Hong Kong, Basel and Miami Beach. Since then, Audemars Piguet has presented innovative Lounge concepts and artworks at all three Art Basel shows, inviting artists to creatively interpret its heritage and origins.
Audemars Piguet Innovative Lounges
For Audemars Piguet’s inaugural Art Basel Lounge, French designer Sébastien Leon Agneessens created Between Now and Then, an environment that introduced visitors to Audemars Piguet’s place of origin, Le Brassus. Mathieu Lehanneur’s 2014 Lounge concept Mineral Lab explored the themes of technology versus nature. Starting in 2016, Sebastian Errazuriz’s dynamic, immersive Lounge designs complemented Audemars Piguet’s presentation at each Art Basel show. The trilogy of Lounge concepts were inspired by three core natural materials native to the Vallée de Joux — ice (Ice Cycle, 2016), wood (Second Nature, 2017), and ore (Foundations, 2018).
Origins Projects
Since the formation of the partnership in 2013, Audemars Piguet has developed and presented collaborations with artists and designers in the Manufacture’s Collectors Lounge at all three Art Basel shows. The displayed artworks and the spaces in which they are presented reflect on Audemars Piguet’s sense of deep-rooted history, its connections with nature and commitment to creativity, innovation and independence. Audemars Piguet commissions annual Origins projects whereby artists create works that offer their own, highly personal interpretations of the company’s cultural and geographical origins. These projects testify to the fertile dialogue between two distinct areas of creative endeavour—contemporary art and Haute Horlogerie—and are emblematic of the company’s deeply held values.
Audemars Piguet first commissioned the photographic works by British photographer Dan Holdsworth in 2012. At Art Basel in Hong Kong 2014, Audemars Piguet unveiled a new panoramic film, Measure, by Austrian videographer Kurt Hentschläger. In 2015, Audemars Piguet presented an eco-wall of living moss combined with a sound installation titled Wild Constellations by Geneva-based artist Alexandre Joly. In 2016, Audemars Piguet hosted an exhibition titled To Break the Rules, You Must First Master Them, installed within the Yuz Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai for which French designer Mathieu Lehanneur created a temporary space which explored the rich history of the brand. The exhibition, which featured more than 200 watches, was complemented by an original video-work titled Circadian Rhythm by Chinese artist Cheng Ran. This was subsequently presented at Audemars Piguet’s Lounge at Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2017. Remains: Vallée de Joux, a series of ultra-high resolution prints interpreting Audemars Piguet’s origins, was presented on the Lounge at Art Basel in 2018. For Art Basel in Miami Beach 2018, Quayola also presented Promenade, a film which explores the logic and aesthetics of autonomous vehicle computer-vision systems as a drone flies through the secluded forests of the Vallée de Joux.
The Audemars Piguet Art Commission
At the crux of Audemars Piguet’s involvement with the arts is the Audemars Piguet Art Commission. The Commission, announced in May 2014, draws inspiration from the craftsmanship and technical excellence inherent in Audemars Piguet’s legacy of watchmaking. For each Commission, an artist-curator duo is selected to realise a new artwork which explores complexity and precision, while enlisting contemporary creative practice, complex mechanics, technology and science. By inviting artists to push the limits of technical virtuosity and scientific ingenuity, the Art Commission explores the link between the traditions of Haute Horlogerie and Art. Recipients are given carte blanche to realise their project. Audemars Piguet provides full financial support for each Commission, in addition to the specialised expertise required.
The first Commission, unveiled at Art Basel 2015, was created by Swiss artist and composer Robin Meier and curated by Marc-Olivier Wahler. Synchronicity explored the underlying mathematical rules of self-organisation among seemingly unrelated components: fireflies, computers, crickets, sounds and electromagnetic pendulums. In 2016, Ruijun Shen curated Chinese artist Sun Xun’s Reconstruction of the Universe, a large-scale immersive bamboo installation and 3D film, comprised of tens of thousands of hand-carved woodblocks, unveiled at Art Basel in Miami Beach. The following year, Los Angeles-based, multidisciplinary artist Lars Jan was selected for the third Art Commission. His large-scale installation Slow-Moving Luminaries, curated by Kathleen Forde, was also presented on the oceanfront at Art Basel in Miami Beach 2017 and explored topics of oscillations, including time, memory and the changing climate. At Art Basel 2018 in Basel, Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt) presented HALO, curated by Mónica Bello in collaboration with the CERN. Taking the form of a large cylinder, this work was illuminated and enveloped in the sound produced by data from particle-collision experiments taking place at the CERN.
