Translated from the original French text

A Retro-Futuristic Spider Clock Joins Geneva’s Museum of Art and History

When watch brands l'Epée 1839 and MB&F decided to combine their creativities in order to give birth to a horological UFO, they were more in keeping with the spirit of the MAD Gallery than that of a museum. And yet!

By Joël A. Grandjean
Contributor

Maximilian Büsser, even if he defends himself with exasperation, is a textbook marketing case. A guru. His achievements, such as the MAD Gallery which reinvents the concept of monobrand boutiques, deserves to be taught in the best classes in the field, and to be quoted from the leading university chairs. Beyond the examples commonly mentioned, such as his Saga of Opus, which enabled Harry Winston, a purely jewelry brand, to acquire in a very short time the image of a watch brand with mastery of the most ultimate watchmaking complications. Herein lies Max's instinctive genius in having transposed the codes of street culture and the spirit of hip hop into watchmaking.
 

This famous spirit, which, despite the contexts of fierce competition between performers, allows itself to invite a competitor, rather a peer, for the time of a piece rich in featuring. The tune we are talking about here, which has constantly inspired other artists of the unique piece such as Fiona Kruger or more recently Jorg Hysek, is called Arachnophobia. It is a temporal spider, created jointly in 2016 by the Jura brand l'Epée 1939 and MB&F, that literally detaches itself from the table where it is placed, ready to swoop on the collector, to weave its web to subjugate its conquests.
 

Today, the MAH - Museum of Art and History is adding the L’Epée 1839 &  MB&F, Arachnophobia to its collection. This comes at a time where the city of Geneva and its authorities are concentrating all their attention on their MAH -  rather than considering the resurrection and dusting of the world's only Museum of Watchmaking and Enameling. It appears that the collection of masterpieces and watches managed by the curatorial historian Estelle Fallet, a recipient of the Gaïa Prize, continues to grow. That it is good, during his lifetime, to enter the Museum and thus leave a trace to posterity. Modern conservators are aware that these watchmaking objects, which today are making ink flow, will soon be distancing themselves from their reputation as talking pieces to become firmly anchored in the collective memory, in history with a great H.
 

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