News
The Persistence of Memory: An Online Chronicle of the Past 50 Years of Contemporary Independent Watchmaking
The Persistence of Memory: An Online Chronicle of the Past 50 Years of Contemporary Independent Watchmaking
As the world emerges from what was an absolute otherworldly year, 2021 is bringing us countless demonstrations of the power that the human spirit holds. Its drive and desire to persist to see a better tomorrow has brought us through lifetimes worth of drawbacks and calamities, and it is sure to see us through many more.
For those us who are cognizant of the universe of watchmaking, the proof of the power of the power and persistence of the human spirit is evident in every turn of its two centuries worth of history, beautifully recorded by the genius work of watchmakers who have invented and contributed towards building this domain, through the ages.
In recent memory, one instance of a season of hardship that the world of mechanical watchmaking is known to have overcome, through sheer creativity and ingenuity, is the quartz crisis. It is in this timeframe that the immortal works of Gerald Genta came into being. It is this timeframe that ultimately propelled industrialization within the watchmaking sphere; it inspired the originality that arose at the turn of the century and ultimately has brought us here where the mechanical watch has been elevated to become a perennial object of desire.
The Persistence of Memory online exhibition is a curated library, “of the key members of this contemporary independent watchmaking movement, documenting its developmental timeline and photographing and archiving its most important watches.”

Casebacks of the George Daniels Space Traveller (1982) and Grand Complication (1987) (Image: The Hour Glass)

Philippe Dufour Duality #06 (1997), Duality Prototype #00 (1996), Albert Piguet Double Lever Escapement (1933) (Image: The Hour Glass)

5. Rexhep Rexhepi Chronometre Contemporain Platinum (2020), Pink Gold (2018) (Image: The Hour Glass)
The Persistence of Memory runs online from the 11th of March, 8 pm SGT (1 pm CET /7 am EST): ovr.thehourglass.com