About the exhibit
‘Goddess of Tempo’ continues Konstantin Chaykin's exploration of erotomorphism, his authorial principle whereby a dial can acquire not only a functional but also a corporeal, sensual form. The concept rests on the idea that a watch movement, while remaining an engineering device of the utmost precision, simultaneously carries within it the potential for an image hidden in the very geometry of its parts. The circle of the dial, long associated in culture with the symbolism of the feminine, becomes for Chaykin not merely a bearer of information about time but a body in which that information is read.
The work is deliberately dual: the same geometry proves capable of giving birth to two different archetypes depending on the viewer's angle, and this capacity of form to hold several readings at once is, perhaps, the most characteristic device of the Chaykin Method.
Compositionally, the drawing of the dial obeys the logic of the watch movement: the moon phase crowns the image at the top, followed by the disc indicators of hours and minutes, below which lies the date indicator, with a sector indicator of the day of the week at the base, so that the order of elements precisely repeats the hierarchy in which information is read on an actual dial, admitting not a single accidental detail. The author's version of the artwork was sold in 2024 at a charity auction in support of the Geneva Watch School for 20,000 Swiss francs.
Cycle: Universum "Horological Archetypes"
The work is deliberately dual: the same geometry proves capable of giving birth to two different archetypes depending on the viewer's angle, and this capacity of form to hold several readings at once is, perhaps, the most characteristic device of the Chaykin Method.
Compositionally, the drawing of the dial obeys the logic of the watch movement: the moon phase crowns the image at the top, followed by the disc indicators of hours and minutes, below which lies the date indicator, with a sector indicator of the day of the week at the base, so that the order of elements precisely repeats the hierarchy in which information is read on an actual dial, admitting not a single accidental detail. The author's version of the artwork was sold in 2024 at a charity auction in support of the Geneva Watch School for 20,000 Swiss francs.
In Haute Horology, an idea is resolved into engineering. In artwork, it remains a living thought, captured in the moment.
