Audemars Piguet Contemporary, the brand’s dedicated art programme, commissions international artists to create contemporary artworks in a variety of scales and media, enabling them to explore new territories in their practice. The resulting artworks belong to the artists and contribute to their body of work.

The in-house curatorial team follows each carte blanche project from inception to exhibition, while fostering collaborations with cultural institutions around the world to bring these works to a global audience.

Each Audemars Piguet Contemporary commission is as an opportunity for new creation, bringing audiences together, broadening horizons and leading to a greater understanding within and between individuals. Working with artists has opened Audemars Piguet to the world, inspiring the brand to see the world differently and to push boundaries.

Since 2012, Audemars Piguet Contemporary has commissioned over 20 international artists including Andreas Angelidakis, Meriem Bennani, Aleksandra Domanović, Cao Fei, Petrit Halilaj & Álvaro Urbano, Ryoji Ikeda, Yu Ji, Alexandra Pirici, Sallisa Rosa, Tomás Saraceno, Jana Winderen and Sun Xun.

A selection of works by some of these artists can be seen in this special temporary exhibition, celebrating this year’s edition of Art Basel Hong Kong. Audemars Piguet has been an Associate Partner of Art Basel since 2012. As part of this partnership, Audemars Piguet and Art Basel co-present meaningful cultural moments at the intersection of art, music and gastronomy.

This spring, Alexandra Pirici is set to present Attune – a major new site-specific installation with live performative action in a solo exhibition that will run from 25 April until 6 October 2024 at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. The exhibition is co-commissioned by Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart and Audemars Piguet Contemporary.

Alexandra Pirici (b. 1982) is an artist with a background in choreography. This will be the second collaboration between Pirici and Audemars Piguet Contemporary, following the programme’s support of Pirici’s Encyclopedia of Relations (2022) at the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale.

The video is a limited edition recording of a chapter of Encyclopedia of Relations. A group of performers create a live sculpture called Crown Shyness (2023) – inspired by a natural phenomenon, where trees do not touch each other’s limbs and leaves as they grow, but instead stay apart. The leaves and limbs stop growing to their potential width so that there are gaps, often letting light reach the forest floor.

More information on the artist and her work: here

The Blue Beyond is a limited-edition production by Touch Records and Audemars Piguet following Audemars Piguet Contemporary’s commission of two new compositions by Jana Winderen in 2019. The record offers edits of two sound compositions for installations, Du Petit Risoud aux Profondeurs du Lac de Joux (2019) and The Art of Listening: Under Water (2019). 

Winderen’s practice focuses on sound and knowledge production. The artist seeks to raise awareness of the environmental issues we face as a society.

Audemars Piguet Contemporary collaborated with Winderen on two new sound installation compositions. The first, Du Petit Risoud aux Profondeurs du Lac de Joux (2019), was developed during two research trips to Le Brassus in the Vallée de Joux, at the heart of the Swiss Jura, where Audemars Piguet has been based since 1875. On these trips, Winderen captured sounds in the waters of the Lac de Joux and in the Risoud forest.

When Audemars Piguet Contemporary invited the artist to present a second composition for exhibition in Miami Beach, Winderen proposed a site-specific sound environment. For The Art of Listening: Under Water (2019), Winderen used sounds recorded in the Atlantic Ocean in the Miami area, as well as sounds from the Barents Sea around the North Pole and the Tropical Oceans to expose the constant underwater presence of human-created sound today.

In both pieces, the artist offers a unique opportunity to listen closely to the underwater inhabitants of a specific region and to reflect on how human activity interacts and interferes with aquatic and also terrestrial life in a seemingly beautiful and visually calm environment.

More information on the artist and her work: here and here

Currently on view at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo from 16 March to 28 July 2024 is Brazilian artist Sallisa Rosa’s new large-scale ceramic installation titled Topography of Memory (2023), commissioned by Audemars Piguet Contemporary.

The installation is comprised of over 100 hand-made ceramic forms assembled from collected clay, forming an environment for visitors to explore. Her work explores the human connection to the earth. She is interested in collaborating with communities, which echoes Audemars Piguet’s belief that culture connects people, building understanding within and between individuals.

Exhibited here at the AP House are two of her recent ceramic sculptures :

  • Sem título [Untitled], 2023
  • as well as a test for a new series titled Espinhentas (2023)
  • On loan from Sallisa’s gallery A Gentil Carioca, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

More information on the artist and her work: here