The Swatch Art Peace Hotel – one of the most prestigious residencies in the art world – celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. The name of the residency originates from its location.
Situated on The Bund – the waterfront area along the Huangpu River in the heart of Shanghai – the building where the residency takes place was formerly the Palace Hotel and later the Peace Hotel South Building. In 2011, Swatch, the Swiss brand known for its design-led timepieces, took over the heritage building and transformed it into studios and apartments where every year artists from all over the world get to live and work for up to six months.
The Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai is housed in a heritage building in the heart of the city. Photo: Handout
The residency, which has so far welcomed more than 600 artists, is the brainchild of Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek Jr, who fell in love with the building while walking around Shanghai. Rather than turning the structure into yet another luxury boutique, Hayek wanted to celebrate “art, the ultimate luxury”, as he explained in a video message shown at an event in Shanghai to commemorate the anniversary.
Both established and upcoming artists can apply for the residency, which doesn’t have a specific brief and gives participants complete freedom to come up with their own projects. The only requirement is that they create something with a meaningful connection to the experience.
Artist Luca Bray (left) at an event to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel. Photo: Handout
“It was incredible,” said Luca Bray, an Italian artist who joined the residency back in 2013 and was invited to attend the celebration in Shanghai. “I love travelling, and when I came here, I went to all the local stores to buy art supplies like paint and even pencils used by children in schools, and used them to make my artwork because I wanted to have a connection with Shanghai,” he added. “I used to paint on canvas, but after coming here, I started painting on wood too and saw how my work changed thanks to all these influences from China. I did six months but I could have done a year and a half.”
A watch depicting Edgar Degas’ Dancers in Green and Yellow (1903) forms part of the Swatch x Guggenheim collection. Photo: Handout
The Shanghai event was also a chance for Swatch to unveil its latest Art Journey collection. Since 2018, the company has collaborated with institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou and the Louvre in Paris, and the Tate Gallery in London on capsule collections that feature masterpieces from those museums’ holdings.
The Swatch Art Journey 2026 range was created in partnership with the Guggenheim New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. It features four artworks: Dancers in Green and Yellow (1903) by Edgar Degas; The Palazzo Ducale, Seen from San Giorgio Maggiore (1908) by Claude Monet; The Bavarian Don Giovanni (1919) by Paul Klee – all from the Guggenheim New York – and Jackson Pollock’s Alchemy (1947), part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.