In partnership with Hublot
There are watches that tell time, and then there are watches that arrive with a 12-foot Balloon Dog in their cultural orbit.
In line with its global launch in New York City, Hublot brought the technicolour universe of Jeff Koons to Sydney, taking over Collider for the Australian unveiling of its collaboration with the American artist. The heritage-listed space was transformed with projections, light and immersive AV – part gallery, part after-dark playground, and an appropriately surreal backdrop for a meeting of contemporary art and haute horlogerie.
Among those stepping inside were artists Mikka Byarugaba, Dr Lisa Cooper and Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran and actors Lincoln Younes, Will McDonald and Bryn Chapman Parish, model Jarrod Scott, alongside chefs Joel Bennetts and Sian Redgrave. With Carla Martinez on the decks, guests moved through the installation, drinks in hand, as Koons’ distinctive visual language unfolded across both the space and the watches themselves.
At the centre of it all was his most recognisable motif: the Balloon Dog. Reimagined within Hublot’s Classic Fusion silhouette, its familiar sense of volume appears in inflated geometries, domed surfaces and convex lines, rendered across mirror-polished stainless steel, red anodised aluminium and blue anodised aluminium. Each edition is limited to 200 pieces – a rather more wearable way to own a Koons.
Elsewhere, the collaboration ventured into more celestial territory. The MP-14 Origin by Jeff Koons draws on the origin and expansion of the cosmos, its sapphire and titanium architecture revealing an intricate mechanical world beneath. Limited to just 30 pieces, it also introduces Hublot’s first automatic central tourbillon – serious watchmaking housed inside something that feels closer to kinetic sculpture.
It’s perhaps why the collaboration felt so at home in a gallery setting. Koons has spent decades transforming familiar forms through material, scale and extraordinary precision; Hublot has similarly made a practice of putting things together that convention says shouldn’t necessarily belong.
For one night in Sydney, that shared instinct extended beyond the wrist and into the room itself – art, fashion, music and watchmaking all comfortably occupying the same space.
