LIFE IS LIKE A SHIP - Anthony Bannwart on art and sailing.

THESE TWO DISCIPLINES GO WELL TOGETHER, AS DEMONSTRATED BY THE SWISS ARTIST AND KEEN SAILOR, ANTHONY BANNWART.

PHOTO AT STUDIO NAEGELI BY RAPHA?L FAUX @GSTAADD_PHOTOGRAPHY

TEXT: DETLEF JENS

LIFE IS LIKE A SHIP. This allegory is not new, but it holds a special meaning for Anthony Bannwart, for whom sailing is an integral and important part of being, just like his life as an artist – in fact two sides that surely complement each other.

?At times,? he says, ?she is sailing perfectly, the sails are filled and trimmed to perfection, everything runs well, heeling smoothly, and heading on the right course between storms, and repairs at port before new adventures at sea.?

As, indeed, ashore. He was born an artist, or so he feels. Some- thing strange happened when he was still very young, aged some- where between three and six years: ?I had an imaginary friend, Glenn was his name. We would do the most incredible things. My parents did not understand at first, and worried when they heard about some of our adventures. I could do everything with Glenn. It was a blessed time. This impression never left me. Imagination was always a great friend. I never lost it.?

?I only decided to become a professional artist, while studying art and design already, when my father announced that he would sell the family company. That’s the point in my life when I tacked the boat and focused on that one direction professionally.?

Anthony Bannwart was born in the small but famous and rather interesting Swiss town of La Chaux-de-Fonds, high above the shores of Lake Neuchatel , which is a World Heritage Site since 2009 because of the architectural value of the chessboard-like development of the planned city and the numerous Art Nouveau buildings. Incidentally, it also is an important centre of the Swiss watchmaking industry. ?I still keep a magnetic relationship with this industrial, watchmaking town, where architect Le Corbusier, writer Cendrars, and car mechanic Chevrolet were born. And I continue to go there, because at 1,000 metres above sea level we are most of the winter above the fog, the light is amazing, and I enjoy my ateliers where I can work on various paintings simultaneously beside being at the local foundry for my bronze artwork production, and where I also began creating bronze bell cham- pagne buckets for star chefs, restaurants, and chalets in Gstaad. ?

He might have been born an artist, but he was also born into a well-heeled family of successful watchmaking entrepreneurs: ?My grandfather René Bannwart left Omega, where he designed most of their many bestselling watches including the Seamaster, DeVille, or Constellation, to found CORUM watches in 1955 at 45 years old. Jean-René Bannwart, my father, a keen sailor, joined CORUM, and they created iconic watches including the famous Admiral’s Cup Watch with maritime flags, the $20 Coin Watch owned by numerous U. S. presidents until the 1990s, or the Gold- en Bridge to name only those.?

But art always has been his destiny. ?When I was between six and nine years of age, still in the Swiss Jura, a friend of the fam- ily and engraving teacher at the local school of applied arts in La Chaux-de-Fonds gave to his daughter and me some very useful basic art workshops. Making gouache, aquarelle, using thin wires for little sculptures. All sorts of materials were used, alongside teach- ing the lifestyle of an artist, including the dedication, diligence and sacrifices.?

Today, his works of art are interdisciplinary, evolutionary, poetic and conceptual. Mainly inspired by the sea, he chooses the form and material according to the idea he has in mind; be it painting, sculpture, installation or other. He also is the founder of the WAVES art initiative for the oceans, a platform of curated contemporary art exhibitions to build a bridge between the arts and the oceans. ?Artists and poets were inspired by the ocean, taking from it and transforming it into art. Now we need to give back to the ocean. Texts by renowned writers like Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ?The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner?, Pablo Neruda’s ?The Sea?, Joseph Conrad’s ?Nostromo?, or Virginia Woolf’s ?The Waves? have inspired to give back to the ocean.?

However, the ultimate interdisciplinary artist, master, scholar for him is Leonardo da Vinci. ? I remember being very impressed by Leonardo Da Vinci already when I was seven years old, all books about his artworks, frescoes, designs, engineering, studies of anat- omy, and much more.? Another, if somewhat different character that he later met also influenced him: ?In 1986, I met Andy Warhol in New York and talked to him. My mother translated this most fascinating conversation. He answered in the most detailed manner to the questions of the young boy that I was: Why did all men have to wear a tuxedo to this event – but he simply wore jeans, a second- hand bow tie, a shirt, a designer jacket, and an Eastpack backpack with his camera inside. One peculiar element was that he could tell the price of each item by memory.?

?Only 4 years later, I started doing graffiti with a cardboard cut portrait of Warhol, which I sprayed in black on different materials and wrote my first school essay for the art course at 15 years old about him. Knowing not only about his paintings, but also about his films and his magazine and TV adventures, his watch designs, or his cats drawings, learning about Pop Art, the music, listening to the Velvet Underground, I understood through Warhol another level of interdisciplinarity. Pertaining to interdisciplinarity, we welcomed remarkable visitors at home, including architects and designers, such as the interdisciplinary Swiss artist Max Bill who left a great impression on me as a teenager.?

His father also introduced him to sailing, as a child on the Swiss lake of Neuchatel. ?However, with my parents and sister, we also grew up sailing amazing trips on the Mediterranean Sea, along the French, Italian, Croatian, Turkish, and Spanish coasts, though on relatively modest boats, such as 40-foot cruising yachts. I remember wonderful sailing as a child, along the coast and across to Corsica, Sardinia, Elba or the Balearics. And every two years, we went to the Isle of Wight for the Admiral’s Cup, and I kept a vivid memory of the Royal Yacht Squadron.?

?My father and his watchmaking company sponsored the French sailing team, and that’s how the CORUM Sailing Team was born, beginning with the 1987 Admiral’s Cup. Soon a fleet was put together in collaboration with Madame Roux’s company Bénéteau and the French Sailing Federation. Our highlight was when France and its CORUM Sailing Team won the 1991 Admiral’s Cup. The team included young sailors who later became famous offshore stars, such as Thomas Coville. We won a few champi- onships with three boats – a 40 ft, a 45 ft and 50 ft yacht – all three CORUM branded, which had an impact then, and under the French flag, not the Swiss. These historic victories are still sig- nificant events for this French generation of sailors and for me. Later the fleet included boats such as trimaran and a WOR 60. The CORUM Sailing Team marked its time in history, I believe, and saw great skippers, tacticians, helmsmen and crew on board.?

This experience that he had as a child might have helped to spark off his latest sailing campaign, which began with a memorable encounter with RTYC and Gstaad Yacht Club member Sir Andrew Cook, already owner of the 100 ft Nostromo. ? When he asked me to find the perfect day-sailer to enjoy on Lake Geneva and for racing in the Mediterranean, I helped find the boat and create the team.? Anthony, now also a Gstaad Yacht Club mem- ber under Sir Cook’s patronage was asked to be boat manager and port captain. ?This boat is a Wally Nano 37 day-sailer named Nostromino. With her classic look and teak deck, weighing only 3 tons in total, this head turner hides a 2.60-metre deep keel. At the 2020 Voiles de Saint-Tropez, with Danish double Olympic gold medallist Jesper Bank skippering Nostromino, who also designed our sails, we won our class under the IRC rule. Last year, Nostromino started the season at the Palma Vela regatta in Palma de Majorca, before returning to Lake Geneva for the Bol d’Or Mirabaud organised by the famous SNG (two-times winner and defender of the America’s Cup). This is the largest inland regatta in the world. The first participation for Nostromino in 2019 was a forceful one. Sailing under the burgee of the Gstaad Yacht Club, Nostromino proved her seaworthiness in that first race, facing winds up to 50 knots that resulted in sixteen dismastings and three sinkings.?

?The 2022 edition had much lighter conditions and made this Bol d’Or an extreme tactical challenge, but we managed the round trip under 20 hours, finishing respectably among the top monohulls and not far behind Ernesto Bertarelli’s foiling multi-hull Alinghi. Nostromino sailed les Voiles de Saint-Tropez for the 4th time in 2022, and won all lines of honour again.?

What does sailing mean to him? ?Sailing has multiple virtues for me: To be alone on the water gives another dimension to your being. It is as though I am confronted with the grandeur of nature, and the technicality of a sailing boat. It is the natural contemplative aspect that I adore, but also the philosophical aspect of being out there alone is important to me. I evolve spiritually. The reflection on oneself and one’s life is done when one is alone, making one with the ship. Similar with creating art and yet com- pletely different. Starting a new artwork or to set sail hold similar emotions for me. Today, I could easily stay alone and away from society for several days, weeks, in order to create. The same is true with sailing.?

Sailing certainly helps him to follow his life’s vision. Which is, as he says, ?to complete a life achievement, which for me means to complete a lineage of artworks that will define me, each day a little more, and after my death, my own legacy not only towards a personal expression but also towards my family story, and as a way to be contributing to universal truth.?

Anthony Bannwart was born in 1975 in the watchmaking town of La Chaux-de-Fonds, where he grew up. After his education in Lausanne, Switzerland, he studied jewellery design, gold and silversmithing at the Staatliche Zeichenakademie Hanau in Germany. He then studied Fine Art at Central St. Martins University of the Arts in London. After these studies, he became interested in a different approach to art, creating conceptual, interdisciplinary evolutive art projects, internationally exhibited. They are infused with a strong sense of poetry with refer- ences to the sea, the human condition, the time, the cosmos and the geography.

The interdisciplinary art created by him includes texts, objects, paintings, sculptures, performative installations, videos, and jewellery. After London he spent some time in Asia, where he exhibited in Seoul in South Korea, Hanoi in Vietnam, Hong Kong and also in Budapest and Sofia in Eastern Europe, Paris. He also had exhibitions in New York and Washington, D. C.

Currently he has immersed himself in his latest endeavour, with an art project entitled ARS PECUNIAE, translated from Latin as ?money of art, art of money?. This project consists of sterling silver coins and deals with the value of art, the exchange currency of money, and the involvement as an artist in this exchange between the buyer and the artwork’s value.

Anthony Bannwart currently exhibits in Gstaad. He is represented in Switzerland by the gallery Studio Naegeli.

Anthony Bannwart on sailing: ?I believe I’ll remain a contemplative sailor by all means, enjoying competition and working with a team, to improve my competitive spirit, fluidity and rapidity during manoeuvres, and when helming tactical and navigation skills. What is truly priceless, is the privilege to take care of Nostromino, learning about oneself and simultaneously learning about her potential and amazing qualities, the same way you learn about an artwork in the making. There is a certain dialogue establishing itself, a true relationship with the boat.? //

@ANTHONYBANNWART.COM @STUDIONAEGELI.COM @WAVESARTINITIATIVEFORTHEOCEANS.COM