Swatch Group draws international artists to Shanghai
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Michèle Laird
Freelance journalist
Michèle Laird became a journalist after a career in the arts that took her to Paris, New York and London, and introduced her to artists such as Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint Phalle, Patrice Chéreau and Claudio Abbado.
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As part of its strategy to double its sales in China, Swatch Group has come up with a novel concept: a hotel that combines luxury, prestige, commerce and art. The Swatch Art Peace Hotel that was inaugurated in Shanghai at the beginning of November is the group’s flagship showroom in China with four luxury boutiques for the brands Swatch, Omega, Breguet and Blancpain.
The initial outlay of CHF 50 million (EUR 40 million / USD 54 million) will be rapidly recovered assures Swatch Group, since the investment comes in lieu of a rent that could easily have reached 15 million (EUR 12 million / USD 16 million) per year for the splendid Peace building. But it is much more than that: the idea that swung the deal with the local authorities was the proposal for the landmark to host not only visitors, but artists as well. The Swatch Art Peace Hotel rests on shops, but it is an artistic hub as well.
Dancers, musicians, photographers, film-makers, writers, painters and conceptual artists are invited to stay and work at the hotel for up to six months, where they can exchange, exhibit or let themselves be inspired by the contemporary art scene of Shanghai, considered to be one of the most lively today. The only requirement, says the Swatch Group, is that the artists leave a trace of their passage, which could be as little as a signature on a bath towel… Three Americans, three Swiss and five Chinese were amongst the first group of 18 artists.
A Dream Comes True
Only four suites and three rooms on the forth floor are for hotel guests and the rest of the building houses the 18 art-studio apartments, as well as the meeting and exhibition spaces that have been made available to the artists chosen by the Artist Selection Committee. Members of the committee include Nayla and Nick Hayek, respectively Chair of the Board of Directors and CEO of Swatch Group, renowned art collectors, Esther Grether, Board member, and François-Henri Pinault, Chairman and CEO, PPR, as well as Mikhail Kusnirovich, Russian Entrepreneur and Chairman of the Strategic Development Committee of GUM Department Store; Sir Francis Yeoh, Chairman of YTL Group and the actor, George Clooney.
The concept for the cohabitation between commerce and art came to Nick Hayek when he was looking for a prestigious location for his shops in Shanghai, the city that never sleeps. The old Peace Hotel at the intersection of the famed Bund and Nanjing, with its dilapidated redbrick charm, immediately appeared to him as the ideal place to finally fulfill an old dream. When he was following film studies in Paris, Hayek had imagined a space where artists could be creative in a stimulating environment and without material worries. “This place was mythical, it will become mythical again,” he declared.
