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Curator And Art Critic Dexter Wimberly

Published on Mon, 14 Sep 2020 10:00:02 +0000

Sitting down with Dexter and a look at last week's biggest watch drops.

Synopsis

In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host Stephen Polverant welcomes art curator, critic, and Art World Conference founder Dexter Wimberly for an in-depth conversation about the intersections of watches, art, and storytelling. The episode begins with Stephen, Cole, and Danny discussing recent watch releases, including new pieces from Lange & Söhne (featuring honey gold watches ranging from the complicated Tourbograph Perpetual to the minimalist 1815 Thin), Audemars Piguet's white gold Royal Oak Chronograph with an icy blue dial, IWC's Portuguese Chronograph now available with a bracelet and in-house movement, and limited editions from Oris and H. Moser.

The main interview features Dexter Wimberly, who shares his journey from founding an advertising agency in his early twenties to becoming deeply involved in the art world. Dexter explains how his passion for watches began with Swatches in his youth and evolved through encounters at OK Harris Gallery in Soho, eventually leading him to discover Hodinkee through the first Talking Watches episode with John Mayer. He discusses his philosophy on objects as storytelling vessels rather than mere possessions, drawing parallels between the watch world and art world in terms of their communities, debates over merit, and the importance of historical context.

Dexter provides insight into his work with the Art World Conference, which he founded to help artists navigate the business side of their careers—an aspect often neglected in art education. He discusses the challenges artists face in an increasingly competitive landscape and his role as a senior critic at New York Academy of Art. The conversation concludes with Dexter recounting his unexpected three-month stay in Japan during the pandemic, where he launched an artist residency program, and his excitement about reconnecting with artists and the art community as restrictions ease.

Transcript

Speaker
Stephen Polverant I got involved in the art world not because of a love of art, but because of a love of artists. I was very interested in the lives of artists. What is it that makes someone pursue that dream? Is it something they don't have a choice to pursue? Is it a decision they make? I'm more interested in in the history of things and the men and women who are behind conceiving these things. Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polverant and this is Hodinky Radio. If you're a longtime listener, you probably know that outside of watches, one of my greatest passions is art. And one day I was reading Artnet and was caught totally off guard to find a mention of Hodinky Radio in an interview with this curator, critic, and the founder of the Artworld Conerenfce, Dexter Wimberly. It turns out Dexter is a longtime member of the Hodinky community and a loyal listener to the show, so I knew immediately that we had to get him on the pod. And it turns out that was a pretty good instinct on my part. Uh, Dexter and I see eye to eye on a ton of things. I love the way that he thinks about watches as these little objects that tell stories and serve as sort of markers of the passage of time and the passage of our lives. And we spent a ton of time talking about that, the way Dexter ended up a watch guy in the first place, how he's been indulging his love of watches during these few months in quarantine, but we also talk about how he transitioned from being an advertising executive to being in the art world, and why he's chosen to spend his career in the art world promoting emerging artists and people looking to make a real lasting career in the art world. I'm a big Dexter Wimberly fan and I think all of you by the end of this episode will be too. Before that though, I also sit down with Cole and Danny to talk about some of the new watches that have made their way out these past couple of weeks. We thought things were slowing down. It turns out that's not true. Uh we are still getting more and more new watches every week. So we hit on a few heavy hitters from brands like Longa and AP, and also some fun limited editions from brands like Oris. So this episode is really one for watch nerds of all kinds, and with that, let's get into it. This week's episode is presented by Acatron. With 60 years of history to draw from, Acatron's brand new legacy collection reinterprets iconic watches from the past as wearable limited editions for today. Stay tuned later in the show to learn more or visit AccutronWatch.com. Hey guys, how you doing? Pretty good. How about you? Ola Stevp. Good to see you, Cole. Haven't seen you guys in a while. It's been too long, actually. Way too long. It has been. It's uh I' Im' uhm back in Hodinky HQ today getting some stuff done for uh our next magazine and there's a couple other people here and I realized it's the first time I've seen some of these folks face to face in like six months, which is absolutely insane
Cole Pennington . Is it as weird as people are expecting it to be, like the social anxiety, all that stuff? Or or you know these guys so well, so it's whatever, you know
Stephen Polverant ? Yeah, it's I would say there's no social anxiety because pre-quarantine I was spending more time with these people than with like my wife, for example. Um so it's uh it's not not too weird. But yeah, it's good to see the team again. It's good to be working on some projects in the office. And uh, you know, then I get to call you guys in. So you're you're sort of virtually in the office right now, if uh if that counts. That counts. That counts. Yeah, we're there we're there with you in spirit. Yeah. Perfect. Uh cool. Well the first thing I want to do is ask, I mean, I noticed, you know, as soon as we dialed in the Zoom call, you guys are both wearing pretty cool watches today. So before we dig into the new release stuff we're gonna talk about, uh Danny, what are you what are you rocking today? Yeah, so in honor of the new Rolex releases and subsequent discontinuations of such releases. Um I'm wearing the uh the GMT, the Batman. Um this one on the Oyster bracelet, so that one went out of commission a couple years ago. So just rocking it, you know. Cause it's uh it's a special one. I may or may not have a white gold submariner in the office today. That may or may not be a thing. Can does it may or may not have a possible blue bezel? It does have a blue bezel, and it's also awesome. And I really, really want one. But I might I might have to figure out how to I I can't believe I'm gonna say this next phrase, scrounge together forty thousand dollars uh to drop on a white gold sport watch, but I I think think I think I I need need it it. to be happy. I'm not sure. Do a watch share. We could pull some funds. Yeah. Yeah. Should we all should we all should we can we can find a whole bunch of people to each put in like a dollar like a thousand bucks and we each get it for like a little over a week. A year. Yeah. We'll share it share it that way. Yeah. The math it sorta works out on that actually. Yeah, sorta. Calend calendar in a special event you want to wear it for and it's yours. There. Done. Yeah, exactly. We'll make a Google Cendalar. It'll be fine. It'll be super organized. Uh Cole, what do you what are you we
Cole Pennington aring? So here's something. That is unfortunate because I think everyone else you guys both have Rolexes. I do not. I only have a tutor. So it's from the same family. So I'm kind of celebrating with you guys, you know, in in the old uh Rolex release season. So I'm I'm wearing the BB fifty eight. Nice. Has that been a go to for you with uh with quarantine? Yeah, actually. The the the old two watch collection, the Grand Seiko SBGK double seven and the BB fifty eight black, the original. Uh those are actually you, know I',m practicing what I preach here and uh those have definitely been very nice the go tos
Stephen Polverant . Very nice. I mean you said you said you don't have Rolexes like us, but like to be clear, I'm I'm not wearing a Rolex today, I'm wearing an IWC. I don't know. Honestly, the last couple months, this has been the watch I've been wearing the most. There's something about this is the Hodinky Mark 18, the limited edition we did a little while back. And like there's something about this watch that just like it's the right size. It's not huge. It's not small. It looks great on a NATO. It's got that matte black case. Just the time. It's super precise. Uh, I've kind of become obsessed with precision and accuracy over the last couple months in a way that I wasn't before. Uh, and this thing keeps really good time, uh, which makes me happy. So yeah, this honestly, I probably wear this watch like six days a week now, uh, which is is definitely a big big change from before, but yeah, I love it. Do you have it on the uh the James Stacey special NATO? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course of course I do. I I I am very lucky in that I get to work with James Stacey and I've known James for a long, long time. So uh I knew about the special James Cut Your NATO trick uh before it ended up on the site, but he is absolutely right. That is for me now the only where to wear a NATO strap. So uh we'll link that up in the show notes in case somehow you didn't see that. Uh we'll link that up so you can check it out. If you like NATO straps, this this is a game changer. So alright, we've we've covered our watches. I want I wanted to get you guys on the show to talk about some new releases. Uh we've done this a couple times over the last few weeks and we keep thinking that like maybe we're hitting the end of new release season. Uh that doesn't seem to be the case. They just keep keep rolling in. Um and this past week there was an event in Shanghai, uh Watches and Wonders Shanghai, uh another small sort of a small trade show to kind of get things going. Uh and some brands from Reichmont that we saw drop releases earlier this year drop some more pieces, uh, which I think was kind of a surprise to us. And a few other brands seem to kind of ride that wave dropping uh dropping new new stuff over the last week or so. So uh I figured let's let's start with some of the biggest names. Uh and maybe the the biggest releases of the week were from Longa. Um Longa released three new watches. They released a TurboGraph Perpetual and an 1815 Thin both in Honey Gold. And they also released a split second for the very first time that That isn't like a split second plus something. It's like just as I can't say again, like this is a weird thing to say, but it's like just a plain old regular split second chronograph. Uh also in Honey Gold. Uh so it's three watches, uh two of them comp very complicated and one of them the exact opposite, like it's a two hand time only hand wound dress watch, uh all in honey gold. So what did you guys think of these these three wat
Cole Pennington ches? Love them them, love, love them. Times three. One for each. But I specifically love the uh eighteen fifteen thin honey gold. I think it's just like I think it's the the coolest watch I've seen from Longa in in the four or five years that I've been paying attention to Longa. This is like I the the to be clear though, my my all time grail is the eighteen fifteen chronograph. So that's like on the super complicated end as far as eighteen fifteens go. And this the exact opposite. So very cool to see this out there in the wild, you know
Stephen Polverant . Yeah I had similar feelings about that about about that watch. I mean for me, this is one of those things I I mostly wear tool watches and I also mostly wear watches without exhibition case back, so I'm not huge into you know movement admiration. But for the turbograph perpetual, I remember when I was writing this up for the site, I called my wife over just to show her literally show her a picture of the movement because it's literally it's it's crazy looking. I mean you don't even have to you don't have to appreciate watches to look at something like that and just see you know how insane it is. I mean I remember um I was sitting down with Jack to talk about this probably the day before um it went live and the watch is is it's it's pretty incredible. It's effectively just short of being a grand complication in a lot of ways. I mean it do,esn't chime, it doesn't do anything like that. But from a pure construction standpoint, it's honey gold. The dial is also made of honey gold. And apparently the dial itself has five different pieces that make it up, and two people, two individual people, have to work on one single watch to make the dial. So anything that requires that much work and more than one person to do the dial, I'm into that. That's great. Yeah. I uh I'm I'm with you guys. I think it's funny that like you each gravitated toward like the opposite end of the spectrum here. Um but I think that's one of the charms of Langa. Like to me that',s that's kind of the takeaway from these releases is at every level of complication, Langa has kind of its own take on things and its own flavor, and that that comes across in the watches. And like these both, you know, I'm looking at the the Turbograph Perpetual in the 1815, uh which Danny you wrote up in the in the same post, and like they they look like birds of a feather. Like they're they're total opposite ends of the watchmaking spectrum, and yet they feel cohesive. And that's that's a tough thing to do. And I think it's a thing a lot of brands really struggle with, but it's a thing that I think Longa does does really well. Um I mean a while ago I reviewed the the Saxonia fin, uh, which is 37 millimeters. This one's 38. Um, and that watch just wears so, so well. Um, I I mean to Cole's point, like if you're looking for a basic dress watch. Like I really don't think it gets much better than that. And I'm I'm really excited to eventually see this one in person. The 1815 dials are a little bit different than the Saxonia dials. So I'm I'm kind of curious to see what this one looks like up close. Plus anyone who's seen a Honey Gold watch in person knows that like it's it sounds like it might be a marketing gimmick, uh, until you see the watch and then you realize like, holy shit, like this really is something special
Cole Pennington . Yeah. And and something else that's kind of cool, another thing that you have to see in person to appreciate is the uh German silver. You know, it has an element of nickel or something. It has a luster that's different. Yeah, which is what the movement the movement's made of. Exactly. So this eighteen fifteen thin has a different finish on the three quarter plate. So it's a gritty finish. And it kind of has a different sheen to it, which is super interesting as opposed to some of the pretty much all the other well not all, but most of the standard production eighteen fifteens don't have that finish on the the back plate. Yeah, that like frosted finish. Yeah, exactly. So
Stephen Polverant that's gotta be pretty interesting visually as well. Yeah, agreed. You know, if while we're talking about kind of like big, important, complicated watches, uh, we also got a new release from AP, um, which was a limited edition white gold Royal Oak chronograph. Uh and this is one of the new 38mm uh Royal Oak chronographs. Uh it has this like beautiful icy blue dial with sort of darker blue accents, uh the date window matches, which I think is is a nice touch here. Um you know, again, Danny, you you wrote the original story up on this, so I'm I'm kind of curious. What's your what's your sort of hot take on like what's what's the big takeaway for this watch? My favorite thing about this release is that it's such a perfect size watch, it's such an iconic watch, and yet it was released with almost the opposite of fanfare. Apparently, the day that it came out, it just magically appeared on AP's website. It was just it was as if no one knew about it, and and I love that. I think those are the only brands like AP Rolex can do that kind of thing where you just sort of leave something there and allow people to find it on their own. Um and so for me, you know, at that size, 38 millimeters is effectively a perfect size. Um but I also think in a lot of ways, you know, especially writing about it, so many releases this year, you know, it's sort of been like the year of the dial variant. So it's, you know, a watch that's effectively unchained, and so there's not much you can say about it that's new. But here you've got white gold, and you've got this sort of frosted blue, so it has this like winter affectation to it, and as like for me, I wrote about this a little bit. We're in September. Seasons are changing a little bit. We're getting into that fall mood. That sort of cool color. It really it really appealed to me even from press photos. I mean, you can tell, you know, a precious metal watch. I think it's the ultimate stunt watch in a lot of ways. It's a watch that just changed the dial. And white gold in a lot of ways is the ultimate kind of stunt piece to wear because it's that precious metal that doesn't necessarily look like a precious metal. And so for this, that watch just it nailed it for me. It was such an incremental change, but I thought it was so effective. And I think judging by the reception of it, people are are really on board with with what they did with that. Yeah, I'm kinda curious. I mean, th this reminds me of another kind of like big statement chronograph, uh, which is the Platinum Daytona. Uh, you know, Rolex has for a long time used these what they call like their ice blue dials, uh, only with their platinum watches, and that's you know, the Daytona, the day date kind of, every everything. Um and you know, for AP, I mean it's it's a it's a logical pairing. I mean platinum has a kind of almost blue cast to it, uh like a gray blue cast. Um so it makes sense with with those watches, but white gold, it's it's kind of nice in that like white gold has a little bit of warmth to it and so this blue offsets it nicely, like it kind of balances it out uh instead of leaning really hard in in one direction or the other. Um so I don't think you know AP is in any way kind of like aping Rolex here. But I do think this watch kind of scratches a similar itch in that like it's a mid mid-sized uh chronograph on a bracelet. It's instantly recognizable. It's got that kind of like you know white metal blue dial combo. I I don't know maybe maybe I'm reaching here. Do you guys see that at all? I mean I agree with you too with the date window. I mean the four o'clock date window is something that bothers a lot of people. But when you match when you match the date window to the dial it kind of just disappears a bit. You know, that kind of softens you know the issues people might have with it. But I totally agree with you. The first thing I thought when I saw it was that platinum Daytona. I mean, it definitely it's nothing you put them next to each other, they don't look anything like each other, but it's a feeling you get the way that the white gold matches with that blue dial on the AP, and the way that the Rolex dial matches with the platinum. It's just a similar it evokes similar feelings. I I I totally get
Cole Pennington that. I when you said it you know it it evokes the feelings of winter and everything. I just I can't get over that. I'm dreading winter, so I kind of checked it out for that
Stephen Polverant . I mean, I think you might be looking for looking forward to winter a little bit more if you had this watch on your wrist, but that's fair. I feel you. Have have either of you guys worn the 38mm uh Royal Oak chronograph? I have not. Oh, I wear it every day. Stevie, you know that I'm a huge Royal Oak guy. All right, all right. I te I teed you up on that one. Uh this this watch is killer. Like I I really this is a watch that's surprised me. Um I mean I've I've been a Royal Oak fan for a long time, but the chronograph has never really spoken to me uh in a serious way. It's it's always been a little bit bigger, it's a little bit thick, it's it's just it never felt quite right to me. Um it it felt like it felt like AP had taken the royal oak and like done something to it as opposed to a watch that felt like really cohesive and coherent. At this size and in this configuration, like I I really think it it sings. And I think I'm I'm really curious to see what this one feels and looks like on the wrist. I've worn it in in the rose gold, so I've I have a sense of what like a heavier version would feel like. I think this watch is gonna be awesome. Um I'm I'm pretty pretty excited about it. Uh do I wish it didn't have a 430 date window? Yeah, of course. I wish no watch had a 430 date window, but that's probably its own pod podcast episode or its own like four thousand-word, way too long, way too angry uh story for the website. But uh otherwise I think I think this is a this is a winner for me. You know, if we're if we're gonna talk about iconic chronographs, like modern classic chronographs, um I mean I think in the same breadth that you talk about things like the Daytona and theed Spemaster uh and the Royal Oak Chronograph. Um I think you have to talk about the Portuguese or chronograph, formerly known as the Portuguese chronograph. Um but IWC has had this icon in their lineup. I mean, the original Portuguese goes way back to the early 20th century, but you know, for me personally, the the Portuguese chronograph was one of the first like quote unquote nice watches I ever saw on somebody's wrist and was like, oh I I really want that. Like that that's beautiful and I love that and that's like that's a special thing and I could tell even knowing nothing about watches that it was a special thing. Um and IWC has has finally given us an update. Cole, you you wrote this one up. Uh you you want to give us the the sk
Cole Pennington inny here? I I did write it up. I will say Danny is a little bit more of an expert in the Swash, but I'll I'll tell you the big news. And it has to do with the addition of a stainless steel bracelet. And that's big. Like you said, it the roots go back to the early twentieth century, so that's almost a hundred years ago. And in those last hundred years, we were without a stainless steel bracelet and now we have it. So now it kind of you know, it's for me, it's almost like a no-brainer, of course. You could put a watch. Like Danny said, This is the year of the dial swap. Well, IWC doesn't necessarily think so. They think this is the year of putting a bracelet on a watch that it works. What do you all say
Stephen Polverant ? I mean I love no date chronographs in general, but this is like o it's it's the same idea, like what you're saying. It's what can you say about a watch that's especially in its modern incarnation, it's a design that they kind of nailed and they're they're they've stuck with. So it just makes so much sense to give someone the option of wearing a watch that they're probably going to love and probably going to keep and give them that extra option to wear that on a bracelet, should they choose to. And for me, it's one of those incremental changes that's just an absolute no-brainer for a prospective owner or someone who's owned it for a long time and wants to pick up a bracelet. If I don't know if they can do that, I could be wrong. I don't know I I'm speaking completely. I don't think you can yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if at some point IWC offers that. Either way, you pick it up on a you have the option when you want to buy it to pick what's effectively a modern, you know, iconic design in terms of of Chronos today, especially in the IWC lineup. I think it's a it's kind of a winning combination. I need to see it obviously in the metal. I feel like bracelets are kind of a fickle thing, you know, especially when it comes to clasp design and, you know, comfort and you know, the ability to change it on the fly and all that kind of stuff. But you know, from just, you know, an outside vantage point, you know, I thought that was a pretty cool addition. Yeah. Long overdue. I totally agree with you guys in in in basically every respect. I mean, I think one of the things that the Portuguese chronograph always suffered from is it was it was a strap watch, right? Like watches can basically be divided. There are strap watches and there are bracelet watches. And obviously there are watches that can be both, but like it's no secret that in today's market the watches that perform best in general are bracelet watches. So it's it's from a commercial standpoint not at all surprising. But it also changes for me, I think the big news here is it it changes where the Portuguese or chronograph sits in the marketplace. Like it it changes how it compares to other watches. I mean, the two watches I mentioned at the top of this this bit was, you know, the the Daytona and the Speedmaster. And the big thing that has differentiated the Portuguese are from those other two watches is that it isn't available on a bracelet. Now, you know, maybe you're thinking about a speedmaster in the five to six thousand dollar price range, and you think your next jump up is a Daytona, which is thirteen thousand. You know, you're looking at at two and a half times the price. Well, now if you want to jump up fifty percent, sixty percent, you can jump up for eighty, nine hundred dollars and get the Portuguese, which also one of the things we haven't mentioned yet is that earlier this year, back in January, and you know, I've heard that some of these watches snuck their way into retailers as early as December, was uh the new movement in this watch. And the fact that IWC put an in-house chronograph movement in this watch without really jacking up the price, uh is quietly I think one of the like coolest bits of watch news of the year. I think it's it's actually going to make a difference to a lot of people because we know they sell these in in pretty decent quantities. And so the fact that now this watch has an in-house movement, it's the tried and true design, but it's available on a bracelet, like this is this is a cool thing now. And this is this now kind of establishes that middle point between the speedy and the Daytona of like real classic bracelet chronographs with serious movements in them. And and I think I mean, I don't know, I'll have to see if if I WC will give me any numbers in a couple of months, but like I think this is gonna change who this watch appeals to in a in a pretty serious way. Agreed. I agree too, especially since it's not tied to anything. You have the omega's tied to space or you know the Daytonas tied to racing. I feel like the the Portuguese or Chrono is not of any specific thing and you can just wear it and enjoy it for the purpose that you wear, enjoy and love that watch. And I think it just it means a lot So that that's the stuff that was, you know, either part of Watches and Wonders uh Shanghai or like kind of came out around the same time. But you know, we also got um some other releases in the last week or two. Uh and one of them is a limited edition uh also written up by Cole uh from our friends over at Oris. Uh and it's the Roberto Clemente limited edition. And I just think this is a damn handsome watch. Like this is just a really good looking watch. Can you can you tell us a little bit
Cole Pennington about it? Sure. Yeah. Well I would say that a damn handsome watch is a great place to start because that is true. Um and I think that's it's the big crown pointer date for for anyone who hasn't seen it. It is it is exactly that, but it has a visual theme that literally just is perfect for baseball. Gold and black and that that uh is an homage to Roberto Clemente's uniform. So here is he played for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He did. And I know actually both you guys are big on sports. So I I will say I'm actually not but here's my favorite movie of all time is Friday Night Lights. I also love reading really, really good baseball writing. Even though I'm not a sports guy. So like going down the rabbit hole for this article about Roberto Clemente. Not being a huge baseball guy was just I I saw the story for you know, kind of I didn't get caught up in all the baseball stuff, right? It was like here's Roberto Clemente, here's the impact he had. And that makes made it so that it made sense why they made a watch. So Horus it for some folks they might not get it. For some people they might love it. But O butris or, since they're an independent brand, there's less red tape to cut through, so they can just do cool collabs that are that kind of just materialize out of nowhere, right? Like like this one, they do a ton for the ocean, they did the save the oceans, da da da da. You've seen them all. You know what I'm talking about. So when I saw this was uh interesting, interesting. And then go to write it up and you see how huge of a character Roberto Clemente is and also the impact that he had. And for me, I actually like I'm to the point in my my personal watch journey where I like when other things get integrated into watches. Watches for the sake of watches are great, but watches for the sake of something else are even better, I think. So this is a super cool watch. It has a great story, and it's just it looks great. So and I think it's priced right too. And there's an altruistic slant. There's nothing I can be critical about with this watch. You know, I think it's just uh overall a home run, so to speak.
Stephen Polverant We'll we'll allow that. I'm not gonna have Gray uh edit that out, but uh ooh. Ooh, cool. Thank you. I will say I lived I lived in Pittsburgh for a while. I went to to Pitt for uh part of college before going to a d uh American University in DC, but my family's from Pittsburgh, and when you look at that watch, I mean it only it not only evokes the the the Pittsburgh Pirate Uniform, but it kind of like is a distillation of sort of like Pittsburgh in a dial. That gold and yellow is sort of the steel city evocation and that watch just looks it's such a you know sometimes you can overdo it with a design like that but the way that it's sort of muted and the way that it was done in sort of a conservative way, it does so much more for the way that watch looks because you could wear that watch every day, and it doesn't look like a special edition or a limited edition, or but you know if you're a big fan of Roberto Clemente or he means something to you or the work he did mean something to you. I think that watch it's a really really good looking watch. I've held the big crown, you know, I've I've worn it before, I've seen it in the metal a bunch of times. It's a great watch and in that colorway and that in that variant it looks even better. And the the twenty one in gold. Oh, yes. Very cool. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and say I think this is the nicest looking Aurus I've seen in a long time. Uh and like you're right, like there are tons of reasons to love the fact that it's a Roberto Clemente limited edition, but like even more than that, I just think this is the best-looking watch Oris has put out in a long time. It's a practical complication. It's really well priced. Like this watch is $1,950. So like with tax and everything, it's a limited edition of $3,000 pieces. So like with tax, you're looking at a little over two grand for a really handsome, practical, everyday limited edition watch. Like I I don't think there's anything to argue with there. This this to me, to Echo Cole, is a home run. Oh, good one, Stevie
Cole Pennington . I I would have I would have actually gone with that. It's a grand slam
Stephen Polverant . Oh boy. All right. Dan Danny, we're we're cutting we're inviting Cole to a baseball game uh sometime soon. Cutout to get into a baseball game, we're gonna invite Cold of a baseball game. That's a that's a very good call. Cool. Well there's there's one more watch I wanna make sure we get a chance to talk about today uh that might be the exact opposite of this or in terms of its like design uh ethos. Uh and that's the HMoser Streamliner center seconds. Uh so we'd seen in the past they they revealed this streamliner design as a as a chronograph with the Aginor kind of central chronograph movement in it. Um and I think people had very strong feelings about that watch. People either loved it or absolutely hated it, one of the two. Um and this offers kind of like a new take on that case and bracelet design, but with like a much more pared-down dial and movement setup. Uh, it's this like beautiful green sunburst, it has these really interesting syringe hands, uh but like loomed syringe hands. Um yeah, Cole, you you wrote this one up as well. I didn't really mean for this to go from like all Danny stuff to all Cole stuff, but uh that's that's how the cookie crumbles. So what what did you think when you kind of first saw this like more pared down Streamliner
Cole Pennington ? I uh so I love it. I'm count me in the camp of like absolutely loving the streamliner. The context of that though, I personally love aircraft from that era. So the streamline design era, 30s, 20s, 30s. So like there's a predisposition to loving this, and I think uh i they they absolutely nailed it. The green dial, so again, the year of the dial swap. This is the this is the year of the green dial, really. Um and Moser, some of their older smoke dials that they came out with a few years ago were awesome, and this one is just is even better, really. I mean, Moser's all about the dial. And in this case, the bracelet is awesome, kind of articulates like an armadillo shell. Uh you also see it has the fifth seconds track, which if you remember that's like a an old 60s tool watch thing. Flightmaster, speedmaster. Um so it has some really cool elements that come together into a package that is also Moser, which means really well done. Incredible finishing. And it's just kind of funky. I like so you you probably remember the the days when Moser did a little bit of trolling at Basel World and stuff like that. Like, I kinda like that irreverent nature, and I think this fits in with that pretty well. Um Danny, you started with Hodenky when the Streamliner came out or not initially? Were you this was uh right like the beginning of the year
Stephen Polverant ? I started in the beginning of March, so I think I might have come right after. So this Yeah, this watch came out in January. Yeah. The stream
Cole Pennington liner uh the original. Yeah. So s now you're a hodinky guy. This is the first streamliner you can really sink your teeth into from this position. What do you make of it? For me, I think I talked to somebody on Instagram about this. For
Stephen Polverant me, when I look at it, it's like Art Deco meets the Jetsons in some way. It's like simultaneously of of a design type, but also somewhat futuristic in that regard. I think it looks incredible. I mean, that's a watch I could see myself wearing. It's a watch that is a really interesting design that could also be something you could wear every day. Um, and I just I would love to see that in the metal because I feel like the bra the bracelet looks incredible in the way that it's built, the way that it's constructed, and I love the whole package. I mean it's one of those things where it just comes together in such a uniform way where the whole thing just makes sense. And for me that that that's really big for me in terms of design of anything, but specifically for watches
Cole Pennington . So between this and the AP that we talked about earlier, which one is more your vibe? I will this one is totally my vibe, that's why. This is definitely more my my vibe ultimat
Stephen Polverant ely. I think um That's interesting. I have this I would not have guessed that for both of you. I have this weird ideal of if I'm buying a watch or even thinking about a watch. I basically mentally trash every other watch that I have in my head and think that the watch I'm going to buy is the only watch I'm going to own. That's never the actually the case, but it has to- That's why most of the watches I own look very similar. Because on their own, each one has to be able to perform that duty and and the Moser is way more something that I it's more my pace, it's more something I could see myself wearing on a daily basis and that that plays a big role for me, at least with that watch. Yeah, I I think that's I think that's a really good point. Like there's something about this watch that despite the fact that it's it's a sort of unique design, it's definitely eye catching, it's definitely unusual in a lot of ways. It's also like not something that people are gonna look at and be like, what what the hell is that? Like, what are you wearing? You know, like you can get away with wearing this every day, which I think is is a big plus for it
Cole Pennington . There's one one more thing to add about this though. Um because I did I wasn't able to get into it in the posts, but I think if you're listening to this you, should give it a quick Google. And that's the Commodore Vanderbilt, which was a streamlined train. Uh I just threw a picture of it in for you know visual context, but you should Google the story of that train. Awesome bit of uh New York history and so forth.
Stephen Polverant Cool. Yeah, and we'll definitely the post will be linked up in the show notes so everybody can can check that out easily. Um cool. Well, thanks for joining me guys. I mean we every week we're like, okay, I I think think we're there. I think we've got the new releases. We'll talk to you in a in a couple weeks or couple months. And then more new stuff keeps coming out. So we keep doing these chats. But uh yeah, I get I'm not gonna, I'm not even gonna say we're not gonna do this for a little while. Hopefully I'll I'll get to do this again with you guys soon and we'll have lots of new exciting watches to talk about. Hop
Cole Pennington e so. The way the watches are released has been fundamentally changed, so I have a feeling we'll be seeing you more than you want, Stevie.
Stephen Polverant Never. Love talking to you guys. Uh thanks for uh thanks for coming on and uh yeah, we'll talk soon. All right, see you guys. Thanks. Cool. Thanks guys. See you, Danny. Up next, my conversation with Art Curator, critic, and founder of the Art World Conference, Dexter Wimperley. Hey Dexter, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. You know, um I think I'm coming out of the uh other side of a very long tunnel that started six months ago Yeah. That's good to hear. Yeah, I think it's uh it's funny. I'm actually chatting with you from the Hodinky office, which I've only been coming into, you know on,ce every couple of weeks uh to get a few things done. But it's uh it's nice. There's a couple people here today, which hasn't been the case. It's it's starting to feel a little bit like maybe the world's starting starting to recover a little bit. Maybe I'm I'm being cautiously uh optimistic here. Uh yeah, I really hope so. I mean, I've been um I've been back home um for about three months officially um from an unexpected extended trip in Japan, which I'm sure I can tell you an awful lot about. And uh in the three months that I've been back, you know, I've spent most of my time at home, um, you know, which is typical, and I've sort of dipped my toe back into doing studio visits very, very cautiously. Um tonight, in fact, I'm going to the first gallery um that I've stepped foot in um since all of this began. Um I'm going for a very, very brief period of time. But I think it's important you know to try to find a way back to reconnecting with people in person. That's great. Can I ask what uh what gallery you're checking out? Sure, sure. Uh Anna's Arena Gallery. It's in Chelsea in New York City, like so many other galleries. And tonight they're opening an exhibition of an artist named Andrew Light, who I've known for several years. It's his first solo music, um, sorry, gallery exhibition with Anna Zarena. So I'm super excited to just kind of go see how they've installed the show, say hello to Andrew, who I haven't seen since the beginning of the year, since all of this uh craziness began. So, you know, I'll drive from my little suburban enclave here in uh in beautiful Bloomfield, New Jersey, um, into Chelsea for about forty five minutes and turn around and come right back home. That that sounds about right. Yeah. I uh I went and did my first museum uh visit a week ago. Uh I went up to or I guess a week and a half ago now. I went to uh Dia Beacon uh and it was the first time I had seen art in person in probably six or seven months and it was so strange. It felt like it felt so powerful and so moving in a way that I think I had taken for granted uh heading into the pandemic. Uh but it was just so incredible to like stand there and like have that sort of like face to face interaction with a piece of artwork. Yeah, it's almost like you're cheating on your apartment or your house. Yeah, exactly. Your mom's like Stephen, where were you? I was just looking at art. Yeah. I like I like that. I like that characterization of things. So that's a good way to think about it. Uh but yeah, I I wanted to to kind of kick things off by starting about how we got connected because you you and I don't know each other at all. Uh you know, we we've never really met. And the way this all happened was I was reading Artnet one day and there was an interview with you and I said oh this looks this looks interesting and we'll talk about your your extended trip in Japan and and all of those things but I was reading this article and they they asked you kind of like guilty pleasures and what you what you indulge in and you said Hodinky Radio. And as I was reading it, I I like I did like an actual double take as I'm reading this article and I'm like, oh no no way. This is amazing. So I had to reach out to you. We we finally were able to get in touch and uh yeah I'm really, really happy to to have you on the show here. This is this is super fun. It's it's funny when paths and and passions cross like that. Yeah, well I'm glad you did. I mean um you know I don't even know where to begin in terms of like um you know all of all of that you know that I talked about in artnet and and being in Japan, but I but I do want to just take a moment and explain like how I got hooked on Wudinki and how became such a big part of my life. So um so I'm a New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, and um I spent a lot of time about maybe 10, 15 years ago, hanging out in Soho, right? It was like a big part of my life, even before I got involved in the art world, lower Manhattan was just like the pulse for me. It's like where I wanted to be. I found myself frequenting a cigar shop slash gallery on West Broadway called O.K. Harris Gallery, O.K. Harris Cigars. This is a long time ago. I bring this up because I was going into the gallery in like the late 90s and you know, just kind of hanging out there a bit, and I ended up becoming friends with Ivan Carp, who owns the gallery, owned the gallery and owned the cigar shop. Um, and I just met a very interesting mix of guys um hanging out there, and there was one guy in particular, who always had a very interesting panerae on, you know, that I, you know, would often talk to him about from time to time. Um, I had been into watches for a long time, but really more as a from a voyeuristic standpoint, right? Like I would uh put through magazines and kind of daydream and say, Oh, I wonder how you know how it would feel to wear that. I guess that would be really cool. Um and like most, you know, kids who are like children of the eighties and nineties, you know, you have you have the uh sort of requisite swatch story, right? Oh yeah. Right. But I can but I can take that even further because um not only was I into swatches when I was uh you know a teenager, but I actually had many of them and I did what I I guess I could refer to as the uh the Jack Forrester, which like wearing a watch on either wrist, or maybe it's the Morgan King, whatever you want to you know, like frame it. But it was actually, not unusual for me to wear like free watches if I wanted to when I was like 14 years old. It was just like one of those things. I owned them, I wanted to wear them, right? So it's like really into that. But fast forward to what I was talking about in terms of Soho. So one day uh one of my buddies mentioned that John Mayer was spotted at Little Prince. I know where the story's going. That is so funny. And uh and I had uh and I had had lunch at at little prince several times and dinner a couple of times and i thought that was fascinating like what what why you know like why how did that happen and so i dug and i found that um you know that first episode of talking watches. And um and I just couldn't let go. I mean from that moment on um I had just become someone who was like really interested in what you guys were doing, how deep you were taking the editorial. You know, I remember the Tumblr days. Oh, yeah. You know, I um so I've been I've been I've been with you guys uh you know as a fan from the beginning. And when Houdigi Radio began, you know, at first, you know, I kind of like, you know, had that same reaction, oh, podcast. So here we go. Who who's gonna listen to a podcast? You know, forty five episodes in, listening to multiple episodes three and four times, my wife's like, You really like that, don't you? You know, and trying to convince me not to play Udiki Radio on road trips, right? I like sneaky and put a little earbud in on the left side so no one in the car would know that I'm listening while I'm driving. Um yeah, so um I just think that from the standpoint of the types of guests that have been on Hoodink Radio, the wide variety of people was fascinating to me. Um that connection that everyone had to watches in their own specific way was also very fascinating to me. Um, I consider myself a watch enthusiast. Um, I have owned and sold, you know, dozens I feel fortunate to be in a position to even experiment in that way. And just like a month ago, I went out and I bought the new Black Bay 58 as a sort of gift of myself for like surviving um the pandemic up until that point. That's a good that's a good choice. Yeah, yeah, I've enjoyed wearing it and I um but I'm already looking at like what my next move is. Yeah. Uh not that a movie classic classic watch guy move on the Black Bay. Uh I'm gonna keep it. I I think this is you know I have uh I have four kids and uh my uh my eldest son turns eighteen in April and I think I might give him this watch when he turns 18. That's a that's a heck of an eighteenth birthday gift. That's that's pretty pretty cool. And especially since it has this connection to like this really sort of like strange moment in time. There's something uh it makes it a nice a nice mile marker I think the pandemic watch. I'm I'm gonna like when you know third four third year in college I'm gonna say hey you still got my pandemic watching that's good I dig that and now a word from this week's sponsor. It's impossible to think of Accutron without thinking of the iconic design language that dominated the United States in the 1960s and 70s. Funky shapes, inventive uses of color, and the integration of technology in new ways are all hallmarks of that time period. 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These watches offer a look back at what originally made Accutron such a unique and influential watchmaker, and they underscore how the brand is thoughtfully reinterpreting its legacy today for a new generation of collectors. For more, visit AccutronWatch.com and be sure to check out the Accutron Show, a new weekly podcast from Accutron exploring diverse subjects including cars, whiskey, pop culture, and of course, watches. Alright, let's get back to the show. So so you you said that you you like experimenting, right? And you like you buy what you like, you wear it till you don't like it anymore I mean how how did your taste evolve from like the swatch days through to being interested in a panorai to to kind of where you are now? Yeah, and and to be clear, you know, it's not that I I wear it until I don't like it anymore. Um I I feel like um I have this very uh push-pull relationship with objects. In some regards, I love objects, right? I'm surrounded by them, being a curator, sometimes art collector. I, you know, I live with objects just like we all do, right? Um, but I also try to remember that they are in fact just objects. And so I try not to get too emotionally attached and I allow myself that room to let new things into my into my life. It's not necessarily that one in, one-out philosophy that we've heard a lot about. It's really more about um I only have space in my life for uh a finite amount of things. So um if I see a watch that I really love, like I'll give you an example. I um I went out on a a serious limb uh many years ago and i bought a um oh man i bought i bought a uh rolex gmt uh i'm not i'm not big on reference numbers i'm i would never go toe to toe with anyone on reference numbers, but this was a 1167-118, 8 karat gold, green dial, uh, Rolex GMT. Uh I had seen that that watch in Esquire's Big Black Book in 2007, and I did the I'm gonna tear this out of the magazine thing, and I kept the image of that watch. And as time went on, I just wanted it more and more and more. And I finally just pulled the trigger and I bought that crazy watch um in 2014 I want to say maybe 2013 2014 and I you know I I loved it and I I kept it for years but then I realized that there were um other things that I wanted to have. And that was a very, you know, again, I I don't want to turn into conversation about money, but that was an expensive watch to buy. Let's just Yeah, sure. Put it out there, right? Yeah, of course. And at and at the time I was also living in Brooklyn um and and taking the train Yep I know that one very well so you so you know I mean you know there there there was uh there was a funny thing about that watch right it's this big audacious gold watch that I make no apologies about. I wanted it and I got it, right? But it was so over the top that no one ever thought it was real. So that was the kind of the funny thing. Right? It was. But anyway, um, I had just reached a point where I was just being too precious about it. You know, that that whole thing where you you don't want to wear it here, you don't want to wear it there, you don't want to think and it was just becoming too um too too So I said, you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna get rid of it, get something else, come back to it later if I if I decide to. And that kind of like, once I put that watch on my wrist, I knew there was no turning back at that point. Like that, that was sort of like, oh my God, why did I do that? You know, just it really it really changed everything about my relationship with watches because the emotional connection to watches for me is really about history. I have always been someone who was a voracious reader of history, American history, world history, you name it. And then looking into the storied past of so many great Swiss watch companies is something that was uh truly uh addictive to me in terms of like uh feeding that need I have for information and sort of put everything on a timeline. And so wearing that particular watch really got me um, you know, interested in knowing the history of Rolex as a company. And so, you know, I know there's a lot of debate about Rolex. I mean, they just released released the gauntlet of of uh watches and I've listened to all of the uh the the commentary uh on Odinkey and beyond about it. But it's a fantastic company with a great history and I um have a tremendous amount of respect for the brand. So I'm still on I'm still on that team. Yeah, I think I think that's a a sentiment a lot of watch guys have. I think it's like there's you fall in love with it, then you see everybody kind of like being skeptical and you're like, wait, should I love this thing? And then ultimately you're like, Yeah, yeah, I can't like you can't really escape it once you're once you're kind of in it. No, it's like chocolate ice cream. I mean, like, look, you you could say you don't like, you know, like chocolate ice cream, but there's a reason why chocolate ice cream is sold everywhere ice cream is sold, because it's fantastic. Right. Yeah. That's a that's a really good way to put it. I I like that. Uh you know, so you you mentioned this this relationship with objects and that's something I I think about a lot, and I wonder is that something that you think do you think watches kind of embody that in a in a unique way, or would you relate it to the way you interact with other sorts of of objects and material things? Um I think that every every object tells a story. Um I am interested in the story more than the object. The object is just a placeholder for the story, maybe even a reminder to me to remember the story. And I feel that way about art as well. Well not because of a love of art, but because of a love of artists. Oh interesting. I was very interested in the lives of artists. What is it that makes someone pursue that dream? Is it something they don't have a choice to pursue? Is it a decision they make? Why choose such a difficult occupation? You know, one of those things that um fascinated me and that led me into my curatorial role. So sort of thinking about objects, they just they just represent things to me. Um and that's really the place that they hold in my life. And I could say the same thing about watches. Um I know a lot of people buy watches to commemorate milestones in their life. That's on a world well-worn territory. I know that. But I'm more interested in in the history of things and the men and women who are behind conceiving these things. Yeah. No, that makes that makes a ton of sense. I mean in terms of artists, I mean you you say you wonder what makes somebody pursue that, but I think that's interesting coming from you because like you didn't start your career in the art world. You kind of came to it, you you had a a career a different career first and now have a career in in the art world. What what made you want to take that leap from from the advertising world into the art world? Yeah, I mean well that that's a great that's a great question that I'm you know very very happy to answer and it's it's funny because I was thinking um if I were to be asked such a question and how much detail would I be willing to go into? It's it's one of those things where you, know, be careful what you ask. Um and and I'll say this, you know, it's like um there's no point in answering the question if you're gonna leave out all of the details, but I'll do my best to be brief. And that is, you know, I started a advertising and marketing agency when I was twenty-one, twenty-two years old back in nineteen ninety-five. And why would I do such a thing? Well, I didn't know that you couldn't do it, so I did it. And um, and within five years of starting this little boutique agency in New York City, I had some really interesting clients, a lot of great brands like HBO, uh Virgin Mobile, Adidas America, Guinness World Records, and so on and so on. Um, through hard work. I mean, no one handed us anything. We had to go out and get these clients. Um, and while I was running the company, still in my 20s, I just reached this point where I realized that after 10 years of doing that, I wanted a new challenge, a new adventure. You know, when you start something when you're 20, 20, 22 years old, um, and you're doing it for 10 years, you have in effect been doing that thing Like it's all I had known. And and so all the while running my my agency, I started meeting all of these fantastic creative people who were doing things that were not necessarily the things they sought out to do when they went to RISD or Otis or Yale or what have you. You'd ask a guy on a photo shoot who's you know maybe doing set design or something like hey, it's you know, you start talking about life and school, etc., and you find out this person has an MFA in painting, right? Or or they have a sculpture degree, uh degree in sculpture from uh you know a great school, but they're not doing that thing. And they're not doing that thing because they can't make a living doing that thing. And that was sort of a recurring theme that kept coming up as I met more and more people. And for me, always inquisitive and ever entrepreneurial, I was thinking, well, what why is it that there isn't um you know some sort of uh place, some framework that's sort of helping artists make that connection between their passions and actually being able to make a living, right? And a lot of colleges were, you know, graduating students without giving them practical life skills. And so my early curatorial life was split between actually curating shows and being this sort of like um you know artist whisperer in some ways where I would talk to artists about their life and their finances and their challenges and help them kind of figure out how to become more business oriented. And that evolved into what I'm doing today, which is running, you know, a conference for artists and freelancers and arts professionals, helping them deal with those aspects of their life, but also still curate exhibitions as well. I'm very, very passionate about that. That's great. And so the the conference you founded is the art world conference, right? Correct, correct, yes. And and how would you sort of like sum up the mission of this conference? Because there's a million events in the art world. So like how what what would you say makes this special and unique in the in the landscape? Yeah, so um so artworld conference is really uh well it is in fact it is what it is says what it does. It is a conference, a gathering for artists and arts professionals to sit in on workshops and panel discussions and keynote discussions that are related to the business of being an artist, right? Surprisingly enough, with the exception of organizations in the nonprofit world, there really weren't any other companies that were doing that at a high level. Surely there were some companies that were doing it, but we wanted to take it to uh a higher level. And so in order to do that, I knew that I had to gain the trust of or tap into the trust that it already gained of so many fantastic people in the art world who would be willing to give their time and energy to present what they know to aspiring artists, emerging artists, mid-career artists, about all of the fun things that no one likes to talk about, like taxes and estate planning and all of those things. But it's really, really important, no matter what Asian artist is, for them to have information to make better business decisions. Um, but I'm not involved in the creative aspect of the artist's life. They are able to focus on that in any way that they see fit, but I just want to give them the tools that they need to make better uh financial decisions. Yeah, I mean that's really interesting. I I I wonder like do you think where do you think the art world is at now in terms of of that sort of thing, in terms of enabling people making this like a viable career path? So it's it's less like, you know, dreamers who happen to get extremely lucky and kind of luck into making this financially viable, or the people who do it anyway, despite the fact that it's not financially viable, like how does this become a thing that like just like you would go to school and get an engineering degree and go work at, you know, a big tech company, that like you could go to school and get a sculpture degree and be a working artist as a career? Well, I think that um the challenge for any artist is to come to their own personal definition of what a successful career looks like. And to not attempt to define their success by looking at what other artists are doing and and what they're accomplishing. You really have to define it for yourself. And I can't stress that enough because the art world is not necessarily a meritocracy, it is not necessarily a place that follows specific rules. It likes to think that it does, but it doesn't really follow specific rules. And the trajectory of an artist's career, despite their qualifications, can be wildly, wildly different from someone who has on paper all of the qualifications that one would say you should have to be quote unquote successful in the sort of general term of what we might sort of think that means. So if you're a working artist today and by artist um i mean painter sculptor photographer fine art photographer uh performance artist what have you um you're you're in a very very challenging occupation like it's challenging there's no there's no sugarcoating that right the bottom line is you spend every day hoping someone believes that what you've created has value right value to them. This is a really tough place to be in because no one's guaranteeing you an income. It's sort of like I've painted this thing and I hope someone believes in it. And even if you have a gallery representing you, there's no guarantee that they have the influence over collectors or museums to convince them that this thing is worthy. So it's a very, very challenging position to be in. And so having other streams of income, a second job, uh, something else you do that brings in money, it's not only um a good idea, it's necessary. Um and it's not necessarily something that takes you completely away from pursuing your passion. I think it's about finding that balance. I'm not recommending that someone who wants to be known as the best living painter spend 12 hours a day working on something that's not painting, but you have to figure out other ways to bring in to bring in income um because the world landscape right now is is um to say it's competitive is an understatement it's it's and I don't want to be overly dramatic, but it's kind of a blood sport in some regards. Yeah. In w in what way? Like what what about it makes it competitive in that way? Well, I was so I was talking to someone the other day about this, so it's fresh in my mind. If you are if you're if you're a painter, let's say you're a you're a 30-year-old painter and you have a degree from a prestigious university, and you've been at your you've been at your craft for for years now. Um every year there are thousands of new painters graduating from colleges and universities around the world. So the competition pool for you to be considered on the cutting edge or you to be considered fresh or to have a unique perspective or your own voice, it's it's constantly being tested by these new voices that are coming in, right? And the art world loves the new. It loves newness. It loves new. It loves the really old and it loves the really new, right? And so you're in this place where you can't be new forever, and you don't want to be dead and gone before you're successful. So it's a very tough thing to navigate because you you need incremental p publicity. You need incremental institutional support. Museums buying your work for their collection. That's what I mean by institutional support. You need incremental gallery uh ascension. You might start off with a small gallery. It doesn't matter what city you're in. It's not a New York conversation. You might smoke start off with a small gallery, and then you go to a slightly larger gallery, and then hopefully the gallery grows with you, or if not, and it happens often, you end up leaving the gallery and you go to a larger gallery that can really take care of you and help you achieve all of your dreams. But the problem is there's a finite amount of galleries and a seemingly infinite amount of artists. The ways in which like as an artist you're also dependent on others for success in a lot of ways. Like you need galleries, you need institutions, you need a buying public. Like you you are sort of counting on not the kindness of others, but you're counting on the the business interests and the personal tastes of of others in order to to sort of like help push you push you up the ladder. Absolutely. And I think there I you know I I think there are a lot of parallels between the art world and the watch world. I absolutely do. Um you know I mean one that's very obvious are all of the large sort of fairs and trade shows that are growth businesses in and you know, Basel World being in and Basel Switzerland and and art Basel and oh you know, so there's obviously that's like an obvious can obvious connection, right? Sure. But beyond that, just thinking about how people operate in both worlds. There's always debate over what has merit and what doesn't have merit, right? Um I try to avoid uh reading the comments on uh even for things that have absolutely nothing to do with me. I like I'll get five or six comments in and I'm like, man, this is a rabbit hole. This is like, oh my God, you know, uh such strong opinions. Oh yeah. Which is great, right? But at the same time, um I think it's less about um turning someone's opinion into your own and more about the discussion itself, right? Like for example, um like the the the Odysseus uh the Longa Watch, right? That that yeah, so so I like that watch, right? And I know from all of the commentary around that watch that I might be in the minority in a lot of circles if I'm talking to people about that watch, right? Um but I form my own opinions and I never try to make someone else change their opinion to be in line. There are certain things about that particular watch that appealed to me. Even the quirky things that I think they may have done. I don't want to use the word wrong, right? Like not having a zero in the date window. Like stuff. Sure. Like a weird thing. I'm sure. I'm sure there's some guy or woman who made that decision or some committee that's regretting it. But fast forward ten years from now, I think that that watch uh will define sort of a moment in time and the company's history. Yeah. And that's why it's interesting to me. I also think it's actually quite beautiful. Just in in and of itself as an object, right? Um and so I don't I don't get caught up in like the group think um I assessed it in my own opinion. I think it's great. Um will I buy it? It depends. I have some milestones coming up that I might mark the occasion with. Um it depends. All right. That's that's a that's a good take. I mean I I think this the way you frame that and like your decision making process and why you why you like something and your ability to say like I like something and you might not and that's fine. Um I I think you know makes a lot of sense in both watches and and art. And you know it it brings up something I also wanted to mention, which is that in addition to to having the art world conference and being a curator, you're also a critic, right? Yeah, yeah. So uh let me let me uh yeah like switch gears here. So yes. Uh I'm a senior critic at New York Academy of Art. Um that is a position that was offered to me a year ago. So this is in addition to everything else that I'm doing. You're a busy, busy, busy man. Yeah, you know, um yes, yes, it's true. Um but but the reason I wanted to do it um is because it gives me an opportunity to connect with students, hear what they're going through um to stay grounded in many ways because you know much like the watch world the art world it's like it's like grabbing a hole like it's like the movie up you, know. gra Youb a hole of like 300 balloons, and before you know it, you have no like connection to the ground, like that that base level of why you got involved in something and why it matters, like beyond the dollar figures and the great parties and the, you know, whatever. And so I always want to stay connected to emerging brand new artists to have no idea what's in store for them in the art world. And so, you know, being a senior critic at the New York Academy of Art gives me that access. I organize talks and um and I look at tons of student work and give my feedback on that as well. It's quite fun actually. Yeah, I mean it sounds like it. I I think I think criticism, like as in that word specifically, is often a really misunderstood word. And like it's something that as as somebody who is is a journalist in the sort of service journalism side of things. Like we get asked a lot like, oh, I saw your review of that watch and you said X. And I have to be like, no, no, no. It wasn't a review. Like a review, like a piece of criticism is its own thing. That is that is a different thing than a piece of service journalism or a bit of editorial writing or a column or whatever. Like these are distinct things. And like what is what is it about criticism in particular that that you find engaging and what what do you think is the real like value in in being a critic? Well um I think it I think it's uh a couple of things. I think one is that um you know, it's it's often said we you know everyone is entitled to their opinion, which I absolutely believe, right? Um, but I do not believe that all opinions are created equal, right? And that goes for me too. Um the reason I consider myself a watch enthusiast and not a watch expert, I would never use the word expert to describe myself, is because I know what a watch expert looks like and knows, and I don't know the things that a watch expert knows. And so when watch experts start talking, I stop talking and I start listening. watch expert says something to me about a particular movement or some other aspect of a watch I listen because they've studied they learn they know they put it into the context of history. It's not just them saying, I like the color red or I like the color green for their own personal reasons. They're explaining to you where the color red or where the color green fits into the lineage of the of the particular object that we're talking about. And it can help you connect the dots to better understand that it's not just about one's personal opinion or taste, to use like taste in the literal sense, like someone liking one flavor versus someone else liking another flavor. Those are sort of like pointless discussions to have. They would go all night and you're no better for it. It's really about someone being able to say to an artist as a critic, or ask them rather, what were you attempting to accomplish with this painting or this object? And hearing the artist give the answer and then saying to them, I think you accomplished that. Or hmm, I'm not sure if you accomplished that and here's why. Right? These are different things than I don't like it or I like it, right? We can say we don't like it or like all day. What I think a critic can do is contextualize things, right? Back to my favorite word history. Put things into the the the context of history so that we have a better understanding of where it is and also stop, you know, sort of like stop the habit of the uninformed, and I know some of these are charged words because who am I to say that someone's uninformed? But to stop the habit of the uninformed assuming they were the first ones to say or do something. Right? Which I often see as soon as a a 20-year-old artist tells me they invented a process of painting I am pretty clear they don't know a lot about painting. Does that happen a lot? It It h happappensens.. Yeah. Well when someone says, I'm the only one using this material in their artwork. It's i it's not likely. No. Yeah. That's likely. That's interesting. I mean I think that that hits on like an an interesting like human impulse that you know is obviously apparent in the in the art world but also in in the watch world and any community of people who are enthusiastic about anything, which is like everybody wants to have their their thing right like the thing that they either do differently or know more about or whatever and it's I find that for me at least like the most fulfilling interactions in the watch world come when everybody kind of just like lets go of that bullshit. Like everybody kind of says like, I'm not trying to show off. I'm not trying to show you that like I know more than you or that my shtick is better than your shtick or the thing on my wrist is better than the thing on your wrist. But instead everybody just says like, isn't it great that we can like all be here and connect over something that we enjoy? And the fact that even if you gave it to me for free, I wouldn't wear the watch on your wrist. And I can be very envious of the watch you bought last week, but I'm not gonna hold it against you and just like enjoy it and be happy and find fulfillment in it. Like those for me are are the most fulfilling interactions. No, it's it's absolutely true. You know, um I have a I have a good friend uh named George who uh is a collector. I consider George a collector, and anytime I run into him, it's it's an FB joint, it's it's uh you know it's a paddock, it's you know, it's like it's it's always something fantastic. Um and immediately he takes it off his wrist and puts it in my hand and says, Hey, put that on, you know? Like there are very few things in the world where someone will take, you know, such sort of expensive objects and just hand them around in a room, like, hey, check this out, take a look, what have you, you know? Yeah, that's true. And then they see the enjoyment of your face when you turn that over and you look in that case back and you're like, Whoa, that's that's a like a universe in there, right? Yeah. Um and that's part of their enjoyment. Right. Right. Seeing your enjoyment. Right? Um or you know, or the thing, you know, that happens now, like I have to control myself because I I'll be you know, obviously not in these times because of the pandemic, but you know, I'll be in a restaurant and I'll see uh someone's watch from across the room and I have to control myself to not go over and just strike up a conversation with a stranger who's clearly on a date or clearly, you know, not, you know, like in the mood to have some guy asking him about his watch or, you know, doing that. But n that's how I know, at least for for myself, that's how I know I'm really interested in all of this. Um and and that it brings me joy. And if it didn't bring me joy, I wouldn't be interested in it. And I'll tell you a funny story. My wife doesn't wear a watch, right? She has become very tolerant of and even supportive of my watch habits. Um, you know, even nudged me in the direction of picking up this this black bay, even when I I was like, hmm, should I do that? No, no, go do it. It's gonna make you happy. Go go and do it. So she said to me the other day, well, if you ever decide to buy me a watch, I'd like a paddock philip. Good taste. And I said, yeah, I I bet you would. I bet you would. That's great. And she knows nothing about she knows nothing about the brand, but she but just like from a cursory perspective, like looking over my shoulder at your side. Sure, yeah. Looking over my shoulder late at night when the kids are asleep and I go on YouTube and I'm just zoning out on watch commentary. You know, so she's you know she's coming around to it, right? And ain't that grand. That's super funny. Um yeah, so I I actually want to kind of cause we're we're starting to run out of time here, so I I wanna kinda end our chat where where we we started it, which was, you know, as I was reading this Artnet story about you, uh, this interview you did, uh, you ended up spending a significant chunk of the pandemic uh stuck in Japan, right? Yeah, yeah, you know, and it's funny, I've been trying to find the right word to describe my time there. You know, I've used the word stranded before, I've used the word stuck before. Um, but you know, as far as places in the world that you can be, uh Japan is is is a hard place to say you were stuck. That's as as someone who has had to cancel two trips to Japan this year so far, I uh I will second that. Yeah. I'm I'm a little jealous. So I was uh I was fortunately delayed for an extended period of time in Hayama, Japan. So uh so the backstory is this: my wife is Japanese. Um, we met um almost 10 years ago uh in New York City through a mutual friend, and we we dated, we fell for each other, we decided to get married. Um prior to meeting my wife, going back into you know, like almost twenty plus years ago, I had taken my first trip to Japan. So I you know, and I'd gone twice, you know, in in the in the late 90s. So I had a level of familiarity uh with Tokyo, Yokohama, et cetera, and done business there as well. But anyway, since we got married, or wife now, eight years ago, uh we've been taking annual trips to Japan with our family. And so this year was no different. We had planned to go for one month. This was before anyone was talking about, you know, COVID and in in earnest. I mean, you know, you heard little things about it, but it wasn't really, it wasn't on everyone's lips like every day. And so late February, we're thinking, so do we do the trip? Do we not do the trip? Well, her mother was here visiting, so we her mother was gonna fly back, so we were like, let's just stick to it. We bought the tickets months ago, let's just go. So we fly to Japan, and within a week or so of being there, it's impossible to get a flight back. New York, New Jersey looks like it's like just sliding into the ocean. Like everything just looked so dire. Um the funny thing is I had taken a very brief trip back to the States in the middle of March, expecting to have some meetings that never happened. So I hightailed it back to Japan, you know, um, so right in the middle of that first thirty days. And then we found out from our airline they weren't gonna fly us back. And so four weeks became three months. You know? Wow. Um and uh and it's a funny thing when you're in a place um like that after um you know after a couple of months because then you don't feel like a tourist any longer, you start seeing things differently, um, and you start kind of getting into a different rhythm. I s I launched an artist residency while I was in Japan and that was announced in July. Um and uh yeah, I just I just love so much Japan it's been said several times on the pod uh how influential Japan is to so many people, how much of a place it is that people desire to go. Um, I feel very fortunate that I've been able to go every year for the nearly the past decade. Um, and that I have a place to call home when I'm there. And uh yeah, it's it's um it's it's quite something, I mean, to be stuck in Japan for three months. So the so did the residency come out of being there for three months or was that something you had planned beforehand? It was in the back of my mind. Um but I didn't have the the headspace to really put all the pieces of it together. But I did then, you know, I I had ample time. You know, waking up with, you know such a time difference than you know the United States. You know, I would wake up at, you know, let's say six o'clock in the morning, it's already five PM in New York. So I had a whole day, days after day, you you have this like whole day ahead of you where everyone you know is winding down and you're winding up. Yeah. So it was a very productive time for me, even though I was quite anxious about getting back h.ome. Hmm That's super interesting. Well we'll we'll make sure to link up in the show notes so that people can learn more about the residency because I think it's a super super interesting idea. I'm really, really fascinated by it. But um yeah, I mean I guess so the next thing the next big thing on your calendar would be uh the next artworld conference, right? Which is coming up in in October. Correct. So um October 16th and 17th, uh we're taking our in-person conference, which we were able to do in Los Angeles and New York. Now we're doing it completely online so that people don't have to worry about gathering. You know, we couldn't do a large gathering of people even if we wanted to. And uh and it's exciting to see how we can translate all of this great information to an online format and and see if it connects and if people are able to walk away with the same value that they walked away from the in-person conferences. But I think right now, I mean Zoom is here to stay. I think online um conferences are actually here to stay despite in a in a bigger way, despite what happens with uh COVID and and a vaccine, I think we've seen a a sea change. Um and um and so I'm just embracing it. Someone asked me the other day like, how are you staying so productive? I'm like, well, because I you know, I it it's just for me, the challenge, once you get past all of your anxiety and the fear, which we all have by it's just a natural byproduct of being a human being, what are you left with? You're left with the work that you need to get done. And I just wake up every day looking forward to getting the work done. That's that's me. Um and hopefully I'm wearing a great watch while I'm doing it. And if I'm not wearing a great watch, I'll find some website, uh probably, or or some some uh other great website, and I'll spend the day just going deep. That's great. I love that. I think we found we found a lot of people have said similar things where like whether it's watches or art or cars or whatever they're passionate about, like really diving deep into the things you're that you love and the communities that you love can be a nice kind of escape and a nice way to embrace embrace the change while also kind of still getting some of that stuff that you that you feel really kind of like juices you up. Yeah, yeah. No, it's absolutely great. You know, I um I I know we're getting short on time, but it's like one or two things I want to mention I think are are really funny funny. So I I cut a short uh a trip short. Um I was in Miami for the fairs a a while back, just so that I could show up at um Hoodigin so that I could be there. Oh seriously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I Oh, that is extremely kind of you. And uh it was like really it was really important to me. Um as you mentioned earlier on in this interview, like I've never met you before or Jack or Ben or Kara you know, like any any of you guys, um, but I feel this odd sort of camaraderie and like connection because I hear your voices every day. Right? Every day. Um because I'll even if there's nothing new, I'll just watch uh you know week on the wrist because like you know, because I know I missed something the first three times I watched it. Right? So James Stacey's doing a week on the wrist, I'll watch it, you know, while I'm doing something else, you know. So um so I wanted to be there um to mark that milestone, just to face in the crowd. That was like really important to me to do that. Um and uh and yeah, you know, I think um you know I just I know it sounds so weird, but I also found myself finding that seat at the bar at Little Prince we're Ben and uh Yeah. We're sitting at That's too funny. I think the funniest the funniest thing about that shoot was was what you mentioned, which was people spotting us, and specifically spotting John. Nobody cared who Ben or Will or I was. But uh the fact that we we did this during lunch, and when we when we told Little Prince we were gonna do this, we asked them if we could shoot this video, and they said yes. I uh Will has this theory, he still thinks that Little Prince thought we were lying, that we were joking, uh, and that when we actually showed up with John Mayer, they were just like completely unprepared. Um, because the restaurant was open for lunch. Like they didn't close the restaurant for us. So you can see there are people in the background having lunch who are just like, What who are these three idiots with John Mayer shooting something? They're talking about watches? What's going on here? Uh and it was so funny to see everybody kind of have that that reaction. Um but it's also like it's also like a quintessential New York moment, right? Um I also thought about that when I watched it. I said, wow, there are people eating in the restaurant. How did they get those people to not interrupt them constantly? Right. Yeah. But but that's the that's kind of like the New York thing. Like you're just non plus, right? Like you just see someone and you're like, uh, you know, um, you know, I could go on about those strange people I've met in New York City, but I'll I'll give you one like funny anecdote. It's like you just never know. So one of my favorite restaurants in Soho's um Blue Ribbon and I've gone there hundreds of times, like you know. Times I certainly shouldn't have, like showing up at three o'clock in the morning because a lot of people don't know this, but they're often open to four AM when they're open. They're not open during the pandemic, but they're open open to four AM. So I had been known to show up at like three in the morning back in my wilder pre marriage days. Um you know, partying and just like, hey, you're hungry? Yeah, I'm hungry. What is it? It's 2:45 in the morning. What's open? Blue ribbons open. Um, so one day I'm there and it's like, you know, Danny DeVito's standing in front of me waiting for his table. It's like, it's like these weird things. And I only point out Danny DeVito because that's like that's like a celebrity sighting. Right? Yeah, that's a real celebrity. Danny DeVito waiting on a table in front of you and you're not in LA. That's like a real celebrity sighting. Yeah. That's too funny. Yeah, it's been funny as we as some of these you know with talking watches, sometimes we shoot them in public, sometimes we shoot them in people's homes, sometimes we rent studios, but it's it's never a dull moment. Like whatever's going on, it's always anytime we get somebody to kind of like share their story with us, whether it's a super famous person or not, it always has its own like little quirks and and fun things. So hopefully some of that comes through in in the videos, but I don't know if there'll be any comments after this uh pod. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. But I but I just want to say, you know, I just think that, you know, it's great when people don't agree on things. Um because it's really the beauty of it, it's not the conclusion. It's the actual discussion. I that's the that's the whole thing. The whole thing is the discussion. Yeah, I agree. That's the whole um that's the whole meat of the whole thing. And so when um when I when I see people arguing over w what's good, what's bad, I I I just always remind myself that the beauty is is the conversation. That's great. I love that. I would normally I would say that's a perfect place to finish, but since we have you here, I feel like we we have a genuine expert here. I am gonna use that word. Uh and i i wanted to get some some art tips for people listening so just a couple a couple quick questions of stuff you can recommend people check out so the the first would be is there any any art or any artists who you found over the last couple months that their work has has kind of like helped you through this crazy time where whether you're seeing it in person or whether you're seeing it online or or reading about it really has kind of like brought you some some solace and some solid ground to stand on? Yeah, I mean, you know, um what's deeply personal? I I I'd been working on curating the first US museum solo exhibition for a South African-based artist named Billy Zengawa. I'd wanted to be the curator to do that for a few years now. And I was able to get a museum committed to presenting the show before all of this pandemic um madness began. And as a result, you know, it's been postponed. Um, and I've had to keep my mind firmly sort of like rooted in why this show is important and why it's important for her as an artist and why it's important for me as a curator and to stay focused on making it happen. Um it's been um hugely inspirational to me. Um and then also talking to other museums about the work because we want the show to travel. So even though that's a project I'm involved with, it's not just an artist that I kind of know just by looking at their work. I I know the artist personally, it has brought me a lot of solace. It has brought me a lot of joy joy and ambition. And so I'm quite excited about seeing that happen. And it and it's one of the many things that motivates me every day. That's great. I love that. Um what is is there is there an artist or a piece of work or an institution that you're most excited to see when when things start to open back up for real? Wow. I know that's a big question. Well, yeah, it is a big question. For me, it's really about getting back out there. Um there is no one artist um that I would say, oh man, I I can't wait for this pandemic to be over because I want to go and see this person's show. It's really about um being able to email an artist or a fellow curator and say, let's get together and talk. Let I I'd love to come to your if you're an artist, I'd love to come to your studio and spend an hour or two with you and look at what you've been working on um without fear of you getting sick or me getting sick. And uh and I always leave with with ideas and inspiration. And I feel like that was one of like like this, it feeds my superpower if if one says they have a superpower, right? Yeah. Um, and I feel like that's been draining from me because I haven't been able to interact with people on that level. And so what I'm really looking forward to is being able to get back into the mix of building community with artists and with other curators and other people who work in the arts without so much anxiety being tied to it. And I know it may be a long time before that happens. So I'm trying to be very cautious and strategic about dipping my toe back into going to shows or museums or studio visits because I think it's quite necessary because on the other side of that is a gallery that needs people to come through the door or perhaps people to see their artist work or it's a museum that needs visitors because they have employees that they need to keep employed so people are coming through the door. Or it's an artist in their studio making work that wants to hear what someone thinks about what they're doing. So there's so as much as I want to get out and do these things, there are also people on the other side of that that need us to get out when we can. That's great. Cool. Well th this has been so much fun. And as soon as things start to get a little safer, we'll have to have you do uh hodinky HQ and uh share share a Negroni and uh catch up. Oh absolutely. It would be my pleasure and it's something I'm looking forward to. Awesome. Thanks, Exter. Thank you. Thank you so much, Steven.