Holdsworth came back with images that shocked everyone. I thought it was captivating.” La Vallée de Joux as captured by Dan Holdsworth
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Holdsworth spent a month in the valley, tramping up its rocky hillsides and snow-covered peaks with his Linhof Master Technika spooled with 5×4-inch colour negative film, all the while grappling with the challenge of how to contextualise a revered watch brand with this wild, changing, primeval setting “which had, in a way, exported time around the world. He signed off on the appointment of the British photographer Dan Holdsworth with a brief to capture the essence of Audemars Piguet in the context of La Vallée de Joux, the strikingly beautiful Swiss valley that has served as the company’s headquarters since 1875. When that happens, it changes your perspective of someone’s work and your appreciation of it, and I guess the desire to own one of their pieces flows from that.”Īn improbable watershed moment occurred in 2013, when Audemars and his team prepared to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Royal Oak, a crown jewel in Audemars Piguet’s catalogue of coveted watches. “That was when I was able to meet the artists in situ, in their studios and galleries, and have them explain to me their process. “I really only started collecting art when Audemars Piguet began its collaborations with artists,” he says, referencing the brand’s first forays into contemporary art in the early 2010s when it began working with the likes of Dutch artist Theo Jansen, multimedia installation artist Sebastien Leon Agneessens, London-based visual artist and filmmaker Quayola, and Zona Maco, Mexico’s premier art fair.
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That tantalising moment of wonder and curiosity has informed much of Audemars’ subsequent professional association and, indeed, his personal journey with art. I just couldn’t work out the contradictions between the house, the light and its relationship to the lamp post.” “She couldn’t understand why I was so struck by the image in the window. He was just 10, he remembers, out for the day with his mother in Geneva, when he suddenly stopped in front of an art gallery window. Indeed, his earliest conscious memory of the medium is of René Magritte’s The Empire of Light. For as long as Olivier Audemars - the charismatic fourth-generation scion and vice chairman of Audemars Piguet’s board of directors - can remember, art has been an important touchstone in his life.
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