My Favourite Pieces: Andrew Renton reminisces through watches

There is “something magical” for curator Andrew Renton in feeling a watch movement on his wrist “I think for me watches have been more interesting the less necessary they’ve become,” he says “We definitely don’t need a watch to tell the time now — they’re most of the time less accurate than our iPhone” But he feels a relationship to the mechanisms inside, favouring watches with complications “that have a purpose” and those he has to wind.

“Even though I’m forgetful, I like the physicality of engaging with the mechanism and I feel like I’ve put energy in and so the energy releases back,” he says. Mr Renton, 55, is professor of curating at Goldsmiths, University of London, and was the founding director of the Marlborough Contemporary gallery in London Through his work as a consultant advising art collectors on what to buy he recognises collecting as “an obsession that goes beyond . Source