The Swatch Art Clock Towers for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games
The dragon has existed as an image since the time of the Mayas and the Egyptians. In Europe, this fabulous beast is seen as an incarnation of the devil and is thus cast in a bad light. In China, precisely the opposite is true: there, the dragon has always been regarded as a symbol of strength. During the Shin dynasty in the 16th century, this powerful depiction of energy - an exhortation to heroes - was often used as a decorative motif on the escutcheons of rulers and as an ornamental device on buildings or other everyday objects. To this day, the dragon has remained a favored symbol.
Han Meilin has reincarnated the dragon for Swatch. Five rings, five continents, five dragons: a symbol of strength on the Swatch Art Tower.
Born in Wiesbaden, where she studied design, Heike Muhlhaus now lives in Berlin and was a co-founder of "Cocktail". Under this name she designs objets d'art, mosaics, furniture, carpets, fabrics and lamps. She works for companies like Alessi, Belux, Blaupunkt - and Swatch. "The European House" is the name of another project she has started in collaboration with other well-known artists and designers. Heike Muhlhaus has made a name for herself in Europe with various other exhibitions and works of art.
"Jump" is the name she has given to her Art Clock Tower and, as she explains, it was based on the following idea: "Only a few years ago, records were still measured in tenths of a second. Today, we need times accurate to a hundredth or even a thousandth of a second. Photo finishes record decisive moments and dissect movements into sequences that make normally imperceptible differences visible. Marcel Duchamp was a visionary in this respect and brought this into his art more than 50 years ago. His famous "Nude Descending A Staircase" divides movement into a number of separate images that enable us to experience it. But Duchamp's nude is timeless. The artist did not possess a Swatch. I do. In fact, I have several. "Jump", my Swatch Art Tower, is dynamic and freezes movement, breaks it up into several phases, portrays it and - thanks to Swatch - makes time something we can imagine and actually perceive."
This young, multi-talented designer studied in Finland and lives in the USA when he is not working in his studio in Helsinki. He is particularly interested in interior design and furniture.
Stefan Lindfor's Swatch Art Clock Tower is called "Winged Victory". The aluminum framework rests on a central axis and is covered with transparent fiber glass, which rotates with the wind. Light enters the fragile-looking structure and appears to be stored inside it. At night the tower glows, radiating its own quiet form of energy, and spots flood the interior with light. The clocks are mounted in a recess, back to back. "The work has a kinetic mechanism - the answer to wind and light - and is a contribution to the age-old discussion about Time, the eternity of Nature and the sudden and ephemeral flame that is mankind," says Stefan Lindfors about his work. "Winged Victory is dedicated to the Gods of Olympus."
| Pin trading was one of the most popular Olympic sports, with more than 1.2 million pins changing hands during the Games in the Coca Cola Pin Trading Center at Centennial Olympic Park. |