This Weekend Only: TAG Heuer's Monaco Piece d'Art Lands At Their Fifth Avenue Boutique

What elevates Monaco Piece d’Art to the level of an art object? One could argue that modern art is as much about the concept and process of making art as it is about the finished piece. Or, as New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz once said, “I’m looking for what the artist is trying to say and what he or she is actually saying, what the work reveals about society and the timeless conditions of being alive."

The Monaco Piece d’Art is certainly saying a lot about pop culture and conveying all sorts of status on its wearer.
 

This unique timepiece is a restored and decorated version of an original 1969 model (reference number 1133B) selected from the TAG Heuer Museum at the brand’s headquarters in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.

A team of TAG Heuer’s in-house experts in the Vintage After-Sales Department began the process by restoring the original Calibre 11 mechanism — the very first automatic-winding chronograph movement.
 

In his influential documentary and book about post-modern art, The Shock of the New, critic Robert Hughes talks about how technology feeds off culture itself, and how the contemporary art fairs, like Art Miami and the international exhibition circuit, have changed how we view art today.

We also know that the TAG in TAG Heuer stands for Techniques d’Avant Garde. And what could be more ahead of the curve than refashioning a classic timepiece? It’s not so different from the work of contemporary artists, like Damien Hirst or graffiti artist and designer KAWS. Both reimagined Mickey Mouse or Cookie Monster in vastly different ways to comment on symbolism in modern society.
 

Which is why the most impressive aspect of Monaco Piece d’Art is that the brand was not afraid to rewrite this piece’s history by redecorating the movement and displaying it with a see-through case back.

In the tradition of postmodernism, this watch also comments on older artistic traditions of rational order, purity, and simplicity of modern design. For example, the watchmakers cut out a circle from the stainless steel and replaced it with sapphire crystal.
 

Is this rational? Who cares? It provides an unobstructed view of the complex geometries of the decorated movement within. The watchmakers disassembled the movement and components and worked on every part of the chronograph module including hand engraving the bridges in a 1970s style. The two bridges had to be remade, as the originals were too thin for the elaborate engraving work.

Could one say that the result builds a bridge between two worlds? If you were at Art Miami, you would.