At Art Basel in Miami Beach, Miami’s Mayor Tomás Regalado unveiled Curiosity by French duo Kolkoz an ambitious installation piece created for Art Basel. Presented by Audemars Piguet and Galerie Perrotin, ‘Curiosity’ depicts a snow-engulfed chalet floating in front of the iconic modernist structure of the Miami Marine Stadium. The new installation played home to the haute horology brand’s events throughout the week, (its debut presence at Art Basel,) before opening to the public yesterday.
In the Collectors’ Lounge, the Audemars Piguet booth is a dedicated space celebrating the heritage of the iconic watch house’s 138 years. A retrospective of the iconic Royal Oak model sits alongside the brand’s historic and contemporary timepieces, including highlights from 2012’s touring exhibition From Avant-garde to Icon.
For Benjamin Moreau and Samuel Boutruche, the duo behind Kolkoz, the interchange between the real and the virtual realms is a continuing theme. Curiosity follows 2012’s Luna Park, in which the artists re-imagined the lunar landing site of Apollo 11 as a live football pitch on Miami Beach. Curiosity’s peacefully still presence reflects Piguet’s wintry home in the Vallée de Joux, jarring in the heat of the December Florida sun.
“We have taken this idea of an invader exploring a foreign land and applied it to the snow covered chalet that has set off on a journey and arrived in the middle of a maritime stadium in the hot Florida sun. We are interested in looking at the chalet in its most essential form and seeing this form as a hut, or as a symbol of the beginnings of the American colonial habitat.
“If we look at the chalet as a representation of American colonial architecture, the artwork provides a stark contrast to the golden era of leisure in the 1970s and the elegant marine stadium of Hilario Candela. As the symbolic representation of the past, and as a bold and curious foreign explorer of the Miami landscape, the chalet has met upon the once grand stadium. There is a moment for reflection and they seem to be saying to each other ‘Look at what I’ve become’.” Moreau and Boutruche of Kolkoz.
by Roberta Lister