Hublot x Takashi Murakami: the art of watchmaking fuses with contemporary and digital art
Watches & Jewelry
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© ARR
Hublot and Takashi Murakami have continued their creative dialogue with a compelling fourth collaboration. Their 13 new timepieces, each paired with an NFT, fuse watchmaking innovation and contemporary art. The watches feature the artist’s iconic smiling flower, in perfect harmony with Hublot’s renowned expertise.
For this new chapter in their collaborative story, Hublot and Takashi Murakami salute the owners and collectors of previous editions of their NFTs and watches. Access to the online sale of twelve Classic Fusion watches is reserved to owners of at least one of the NFTs created as part of the third collaboration between Hublot and Takashi Murakami, taking the art of high-quality watchmaking and digital art into a new realm.
“Our partnership with Takashi Murakami allows us to create a story that interlinks all the works we have released with Takashi, both digital pieces and the watches themselves. Faithful to its history, Hublot is once again first, unique and different in how it rewards its collectors, providing them with privileged access to both ownership of and trade in unique artistic pieces. Hublot Loves Art!” enthuses Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe.
“When my collaboration with Hublot was announced, we made it known that we would be adopting new forms of artistic expression. After creating all the timepieces together, as well as the digital works of art, we are now imagining new ways of accessing contemporary art,” notes Takashi Murakami.
The 12 watches, referencing the 12 hours on the dial, are each paired with a different color and linked to an NFT. The NFTs are inspired by Japanese video games and television from the 1970s, as well as the Classic Fusion Takashi Murakami All Black, the first collaboration between the Swiss watchamker and the artist released in January 2021. Collectors have one year to acquire the 12 unique NFTs on the OpenSea platform. After this period, in April 2024, only the collector who has been successful in purchasing the 12 NFTs will be eligible to purchase the 13th and most sought-after watch, the Classic Fusion Takashi Murakami Black Ceramic Rainbow. A veritable masterpiece, the watch reinterprets Takashi Murakami’s emblematic smiling flower with 12 petals forming a perfect gradient of rubies, sapphires, amethysts, tsavorites and topaz. Thanks to an ingenious ball-bearing system developed by Hublot engineers, the petals offer a dizzying rainbow spectacle as they spin and create a striking effect against the 45mm black ceramic case.
If no one person is able to accumulate all twelve NFTs, this unique watch will be auctioned by Hublot to raise funds for charity.