When minimal art meets contemporary watchmaking
Born from a desire to celebrate precision, purity of form, and the search for meaning, the CAB Foundation pays tribute to minimal and conceptual art. In this architectural setting bathed in light, simplicity is never a withdrawal, but a revelation — of essential forms, subtle balances, and suspended time.
Saint-Paul-de-Vence, June 6th, 2025 — It is only natural that De Bethune would find deep resonance here. Since its founding in 2002, the independent Swiss watchmaking Manufacture has established itself as one of the most unique laboratories in contemporary horology. At its helm, Denis Flageollet — Founder and Master Watchmaker — continues an uncompromising journey of research, blending artistic intuition, scientific rigor, and a fascination with celestial mechanics. Each De Bethune creation is an exploration of time as material, form, and sensation. Each watch questions time in its materiality, expression, and sensory resonance.
The partnership between the CAB Foundation and De Bethune seals the meeting of two parallel paths: that of a passionate collector of minimal and conceptual art, and that of a visionary watchmaker exploring time not only as a measure, but as a living substance, a sculpted form, and a perceptual experience. Together, they open a new dialogue between contemporary art and mechanical art — between exhibited works and timepieces, between the vibration of a Dan Flavin neon and the bluish glow of mirror-polished titanium. It is also a shared tribute to the intelligence of the hand, to experimentation, and to the ever-renewed possibility of evoking emotion through the right form. In this space where every detail is intentional, the gaze settles, time slows. And one understands that true innovation — in both art and watchmaking — often lies in returning to the essential, in order to reveal its power.
The first chapter of this dialogue with time, presented today in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, highlights this spirit of exploration and the transcendence of codes through a collaboration with artist Fiona Krüger to create Mystery Box: Forget Time — a unique mechanical work inspired by the writings of physicist Carlo Rovelli on the impermanence of time.
Imagined by Fiona Krüger and developed in close collaboration with Denis Flageollet, this immersive work fuses art, philosophy, and horology. Its internal clock, with floating indexes on glass tubes, gives shape to a perception of time that is fluid and elusive. The outer marquetry, crafted with Hawthorn Fine Boxes and artisan Emeline Dépail, visually translates cosmic motion — in perfect harmony with De Bethune’s aesthetic and mechanical vision. A creation that, too, questions our relationship with time — in order to better liberate us from it.