Trilobe x Daniel Buren "La Réciproque" Desk Clock for Only Watch

Trilobe is very proud to support once again Only Watch in its 2021 edition. Since the first edition in 2005, Only Watch has come a long way in accelerating the knowledge of Duchenne muscular dystrophy that affect hundreds of thousands of people. Thanks to Only Watch, scientists are now entering the decisive and promising phase of patients’ recruitment for clinical trials.

It is to honour this extraordinarily ambitious project that the Trilobe watchmaking House and the Sculptor Daniel Buren have decided to offer a unique and meaningful collaboration, a singular creation. This will convince us that the reciprocity, fruit of this collaboration, is as beautiful between art and watchmaking as it is between audacity and generosity.

Trilobe La Réciproque by Daniel Buren

Forms, colours and meanings find their reciprocal,
Hours, minutes and seconds dance around each other,
Time passes and its form is released,
Black and White marry to the beating of a red heart,
Verticality is amused by circularity,
The frantic race of the "X-Centric" rings overlaps the verticality of the 8.7cm wide strips,
Disorder is mastered,
Colours leave and find each other again,
The gaze focuses and circulates to invite one to widen its field of vision,
Shapes finally come together and align themselves twice a day only,
At the time when it all began, the time of the first meeting of Daniel Buren & Trilobe, at 02:13pm.

Designed as the scarlet beating heart of the work, this mechanical calibre is unlike any other. It combines the architectural codes dear to Trilobe with the artistic vision of the Sculptor Daniel Buren. A real technical challenge, it took several months of development to create this unique calibre, designed in France and entirely handmade by Swiss watchmakers in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. Imagined from a multi-dimensional perspective and inspired by Trilobe’s signature X-Centric Calibre, this made-to-measure movement is designed like a contemporary house. Each part has been recalibrated to the scale of this unique clock, to allow the display of the hours, the minutes and the seconds by rotating rings and fixed indicators. In the purest horological tradition, the clock is equipped with a constant- force escapement, while the barrel has been doubled to provide an eight-day power reserve. It features the excellent finishes of traditional watchmaking, with hand-polishing, bevelled bridges, as well as sunburst barrels and a sandblasted plate.

The Trilobe clock by Daniel Buren is a singular work of art in which the eccentric vision of the Artist cannot be understood without the technical expertise of the Watchmaker. It also remains faithful to the tradition of excellence in watchmaking and offers us the immutable and inimitable ticking of the great clocks.

The encounter

"La Réciproque" is the action that subjects perform on each other: two reciprocal forces that materialise into a unique artistic creation. Daniel Buren and Trilobe have fun with this encounter: opposing forms and colours, disturbing the view, questioning the mind. Art and watchmaking oppose and meet each other, in reciprocal forces.

The Creation

It is from this moment and this desire for reciprocity that the Trilobe by Daniel Buren project was born: to combine a young watchmaking House with one of the most recognised Artist on the international scene. Around a scarlet beating heart, imagine a duality between the technicality of the watchmaker and the unique proposal of the Artist in an immediate dialogue with the «X-Centricity» of Trilobe. It is, above all, the exhilarating prospect
to realise a unique artwork to serve a great cause. Between patience and determination, the Trilobe project by Daniel Buren is a true reciprocal.

Daniel Buren

"Daniel Buren has been moving his famous stripes around the world for more than 56 years, each time creating both enthusiasm and controversy". Considered one of the most recognised French Artist on the international scene, Daniel Buren has had nearly 3,000 exhibitions around the world, including Monumenta at the Grand Palais (2012), the Observatory of Light at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (2016), "Les Deux Plateaux" in
the Cour d’Honneur of the Palais Royal, the Venice Biennale on more than 10 occasions with the Golden Lion in 1986 or the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2005, without forgetting the memorable exhibition using all the available spaces, on the rooftops, in the basement, in the caterpillar, on the balconies, at the Pompidou Centre in 2002.

In 2007, Daniel Buren was awarded the Praemium Imperiale of Japan for his work, the highest honour in the field of the visual arts.

However, the artist has very few collaborations to his credit. We can highlight his exceptional collaboration with Hermès in 2010, for which he produced 360 squares, all of them unique. Louis Vuitton also entrusted him in 2013 with each of the windows of its most emblematic shops around the world, as well as the production of its fashion show in the Cour Carrée du Louvre. Today it is Trilobe time that Daniel Buren has decided to sublimate in the service of the Only Watch cause.

Trilobe, a conceptual reversal

It’s 2 hours, 13 minutes et 28 seconds.

Trilobe invites you to embrace difference and to adopt a new frame of reference. A combination of architecture, design, and poetry, Trilobe is a watchmaker that sets time in motion. Three rotating rings are set in motion, each bearing a gradation of time: the largest ring for the hours, the middle one for the minutes, and the smallest for the seconds. Eccentric and mobile, they turn counterclockwise. The three trilobes, a universal and timeless architectural shape, echo the three pillars of time - Hours, Minutes and Seconds - and become the new time indicator.

With its eccentric dynamics, innovation, and expertise place themselves at the service of the dial’s poetry. Our innovation compendium translates into the development of our X-Centric calibre, with the task of combining the
technical challenge with an ‘‘artistically offbeat’’ approach, while perpetuating Swiss watchmaking excellence. Thus, another vision of time is born: hands less, but with a sprinkle of magic!

Technical specifications: 

Trilobe x Daniel Buren "La Réciproque" Desk Clock for Only Watch

Unique piece for Only Watch 2021

Case

• Alternating black and white aluminium frame.
• The back of the clock is protected by glass.
• The clock can either be fixed on a wall or stand on a table.
• Dimensions: 30cm by 30 cm
• Thickness: 5.15 cm

Dial 

• Three eccentric and movable rings slide, each of them in its own position (hours, minutes, seconds), following its own counterclockwise path without ever resting.
• Hands are replaced by three non-aligned Trilobe index.
• The black and white stripes line up twice a day, at 2.13 am/pm, the time of the first meeting between Trilobe & Daniel Buren.

Movement

• Mechanical hand-wound, double barrel.
• Power reserve: 8 days
• Balance frequency: 18’000 vib/h (2,5 Hz)
• Functional jewels: 19
• Total Components: 590

Patent

• Display concept composed of 3 display elements representing the hours, minutes and running seconds located on the same plane as the dial.

MSRP: Up for auction

Estimate: CHF 35'000-45'000

For more information, please visit onlywatch.com