Dial A for Art: Rado and painter Daniel Engelberg blur the lines between art and watchmaking

Benoit Mintiens, the industrial designer behind Ressence, admits that the idea of releasing an art watch – one made in collaboration with an artist – is not an obvious one for the independent brand. 'We do it occasionally precisely because it disrupts our philosophy – that Germanic form follows function approach,' he explains, 'because it doesn’t interrupt the function of the watch. It’s rather like putting a new coat on it. It gives the watch another character'.

He is referring specifically to past watches designed with the likes of Shantell Martin, Alain Silberstein and Stefan Sagmeister, and now the two new limited edition Art Watch Type 8 watches, co-created with the German sculptor and painter Daniel Engelberg, whose abstract work focuses on the use of colour gradients. Mintiens discovered Engelberg’s work at a Belgian art fair and saw its application for a watch dial immediately, not least because, like Ressence’s patented signature Orbital Convex System display, Engleberg’s Inside Out series of works comprise discs rotating around a central point.

'It was clear to me that the graphic language of his work matched with that of Ressence, not least because, from a practical point of view, the black barriers with which he separates his choice of colours was [transferable to a Ressence dial, from which material is milled out and then filled with pigment, in this case blue Grade-A Super-Luminova],' says Mintiens. He also liked the 'positivity and forward-looking nature' of Engelberg’s work and how it might allow Ressence to further stand apart from 'the majority of brands with their nostalgia about the past.'

Rather than having to follow a brief to select a more approachable palette, Engelberg was given free reign in his choice of colours – hence the more striking of the two designs, with a gradiated blue central section with a three layer surround in shades of pink: 'not an obviously commercial choice, comprising colours that would be hard to put together if they were clothing, at least not without looking like a clown,' laughs Mintiens. Since Engleberg blends his own paints, the only challenge was the pigment manufacturers reproducing them without the aid of Pantone references.

'I tend to select colours on instinct, and as an artist I have the luxury of thinking about colour without the need for it to have any purpose,' says Engelberg, who admits to never wearing a watch, or any jewellery himself ('Just clothes,' he adds). 'Colour enriches your mind if you just allow yourself to dive into it. A lot of people are funny about abstract art – so what’s been exciting for me is the idea of seeing it translated into an everyday object like a watch [and thus made more approachable]'.

From a business viewpoint, Mintiens explains that such art projects allow for watches to find distinction in an over-crowded market, especially with such bold use of colour standing apart from the industry’s usual leanings towards black, navy, grey and white dials – necessarily muted, arguably, to sell a sufficient number of pieces. 'Not all brands can make art watches like this simply because they need to appeal to a mainstream watch consumer,' he argues. 'But we sell to a lover of product design, more than of watches, and the codes that appeal to that consumer are very different.'

Does a watch brand collaborating with an artist move certain models closer to being considered artworks in their own right? Certainly bigger brands have also experimented with art watches: for the last five years Zenith, for example, has collaborated with Felipe Pantone - an artist also recognised for a chromatic style - most recently on its Defy Skyline Tourbillon. This has a star-shaped oscillating weight, with oil slick effect PVD coating, visible through a partially open-worked dial. Hublot has collaborated with Richard Orlinski, Samuel Ross, Takeshi Murakami and, as of last year, Daniel Arsham, who co-created the Droplet, a contemporary pendant/pocket watch for the brand. In 2024 Audemars Piguet worked with Kaws, Bulgari with architect Tadeo Ando and conceptual artist Laurent Grasso.

'The fact is that we have designers working in-house for our main collections, but drawing designs from artists specialist in other fields can give us the kind of creative input we need for special editions. The outcomes reflect that thinking outside of the box,' explains Adrian Bosshard, the CEO of Rado, which has collaborated on versions of its True Square and other watches with the likes of Evgenia Miro, Yuan Youmin, as well as names from the worlds of fashion and industrial design, Marina Hoermanseder, Kunihiko Morinaga and Tej Chauhan among them. Launched not as limited editions, Rado chooses rather to keep these models available for up to three years.

'The people we work with have to understand the brand, and that means we have to be very selective with those we work with,” Bosshard adds, 'but their colour combinations, choice of finishing or dial shape make for ideas that most probably our internal designers wouldn’t have come up with. And in turn they attract a new customer to Rado, those who might otherwise not consider it.'

Mintiens is rather scathing about many art watches – 'just taking a poorly executed Picasso copy and reproducing it on a too-small surface, then putting a hole in the middle of it,' as he puts it – but argues that, done well, magic can happen. 'It’s the blending of two universes, and if you do do it well you don’t end up with just a distinctive watch but a dynamic piece of art, with a function,' he reckons.

ressencewatches.com