In Dubai, in a white, minimalist space where each work can breathe, we meet Clément Reisky. Entrepreneur, gallerist and passionate collector, he introduces us to three pieces that embody his philosophy: parallel worlds where dreams meet reality, where death brushes against abstraction, where the invisible becomes visible.
These three acquisitions are anything but random. They tell a curator’s story – that of a man who distributes art the way others distribute stories.
First Stop: Dalí’s Soft Watch
Clément welcomes us in front of a bronze sculpture, discreetly lit. It’s a watch, but not an ordinary one. It stretches, bends, contorts – frozen bronze turned fluid, as if time itself refused to flow in a straight line.
“I discovered this piece three years ago,” explains Clément, gently touching the patinated bronze surface. “Dalí created this series in limited editions in the 1980s. There’s something timeless in this approach: taking the icon of The Persistence of Memory, that hallucinatory painting where time dissolves, and turning it into a tangible object.”
The bronze captures exactly that: a watch that refuses to behave as expected. The numbers fade away. The hands almost don’t exist. It’s a watch that says to the world: “You expect too much from time.”
“When you distribute art, you realize that clients are looking for pieces that ask them a question. This watch asks an existential question. What is time, really? Does it speed up, slow down, or simply dissolve when we stop paying attention to it?”
He pauses.
“In my personal collection, I look for pieces that unsettle as much as they seduce. Dalí fits that criterion perfectly.”
Second Stop: The Vanitas with Butterflies
We turn toward the second wall. The atmosphere shifts completely.
A large-scale painting with intense emotional density. At the center : a black, skeletal skull, where five large butterflies have landed. Their beauty is in sharp contrast with the death they inhabit. The background oscillates between pure white and pulsating shades of orange.
“It’s a vanitas,” Clément explains. “The genre dates back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The idea is simple: everything dies. The butterflies are a metaphor for the soul and for impermanence. The skull is our fate, the inescapable.”
He steps closer to the canvas.
“I love contemplating this painting. It reminds me to live everything to the fullest, to move forward, to take risks. The end is inevitable – you shouldn’t regret anything.”
A contemporary collector might have painted this in an abstract, distanced way. But this painting looks death straight in the eye with an elegance our era has lost.
“When you sell art today, clients are often looking for décor, for something that matches their interior. But some, the real collectors, they want to be challenged. This painting challenges them.”
He smiles.
“I like works that ask questions you can’t answer.”
Third Stop: Braque’s Bird
We end the visit in front of a delicate aquatint, carefully framed. A work that at first glance seems almost fragile compared to the other two.
A white bird, wings spread, appears in a nest sketched out with spontaneous black lines. Nothing else. No context. No perspective. The bird hangs there, almost floating, on a cream-coloured background that envelops it like silence.
“It’s Braque; he made it in 1958,” murmurs Clément. “You see, Braque spent years exploring the motif of the bird. Not as a symbol, but more as a movement – the essence of something that refuses to be contained.”
He points to the pared-down lines of the nest.
“The nest is barely suggested. Braque could have made it into a monumental, geometric object – pure cubism. But he doesn’t. He leaves emptiness. He leaves freedom. The bird is confined and at the same time liberated by that emptiness.”
The work is a limited edition of 10 impressions worldwide. It is signed by Braque himself, published by Louis Broder in Paris, and engraved by master printmakers Crommelynck and Dutrou. This is authentic rarity.
“The difference between this piece and the thousands of Braques circulating out there is that it asks a question: what is freedom when you share a space with someone else? The bird and its nest are not opposites, they are interdependent.”
Clément steps back from the work.
“You know, by distributing art through our partnerships, auctions and galleries, I see thousands of acquisitions. Many people buy because it’s pretty. Some buy because they think it will go up in value. But real collectors? They buy because the work inhabits them.”
The Common Thread
As we leave the space, a pattern emerges. These three pieces are not just three separate acquisitions – they form a philosophical triptych.
The Dalí watch: time is an illusion.
The vanitas with butterflies: a reminder not to waste the time we are given.
The Braque bird: freedom exists within constraints.
Three ways of saying that reality is never what it seems.
“That’s the advantage of collecting over time,” Clément explains. “You’re not chasing the perfect object. You’re looking for pieces that make sense together. Works that speak to each other.”
And that may be the true art of collecting: not accumulating, but weaving a silent conversation between works. A conversation that, with every glance, whispers something different.
Collector Profile
Clément Reisky | Collector and entrepreneur
Collecting specialties: Modern art, from surrealism to abstraction, contemporary photography
Curatorial statement: “I look for pieces that ask questions, not just beautiful ones. Art should disturb as much as it seduces.”
