News 
Michael Murphy
The installation, entitled Spacetime, broadens the creative and cultural universe of the Manufacture by exploring the relationship between the three physical dimensions of space and the fourth dimension, that of time.
Unveiled on April 14th at the Watches & Wonders exhibition in Shanghai, Spacetime will be exhibited in several major cities around the world throughout the year.
Michael Murphy’s main body of work emphasises perspective: his installations require the viewer to change position in order to fully appreciate them. Fusing classical art-making techniques with digital processes and manual skills, he has invented an entirely new formula for rendering two-dimensional images as suspended, three-dimensional mobiles. These anamorphic installations comprise a multitude of objects hanging at various heights and distances. Depending on the viewer’s line of sight, they appear to change form: from a seemingly random and chaotic jumble of shapes they coalesce into a highly organised and recognisable image. Thus, the viewer experiences a perceptual shift, breaking down the barrier between the art medium itself and the subjective experience.
For this new work, the Maison has collaborated with an artist whose work is often based on images of instantly recognisable cultural icons. “The Reverso has this iconic graphic identity and that’s the type of content that I often work with,” says Michael Murphy. The timepiece chosen to be represented through Spacetime is the newly released Reverso Tribute Nonantième, which expresses time in an entirely different manner on each of its faces. The artist immediately saw a parallel between this new Reverso and his anamorphic works, many of which have two distinct sides, showing two entirely different images when viewed from different positions.
The shape of each of the artwork’s 69 components resembles a familiar part of a watch. However, each is photo-printed with different fragments of movement and dial components. These parts appear exactly as in the watch only when they are lined up perfectly, as the viewer walks around the installation.
The collaboration with Jaeger-LeCoultre has fulfilled a desire, long held by the artist, to make a time piece – in the literal sense. “Time is an essential component to all of my work – the fourth dimension. But I have always been fascinated by the aesthetic of internal watch parts and their precision and have always wanted to make a time piece – a piece that is about time.”
May 20, 2021