Yves Behar and Samsung Unveil “Anima Terra” in Chicago

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Samsung Electronics, a market leader and award-winning innovator in consumer electronics and telecommunications, in partnership with celebrated industrial designer and artist, Yves Behar, took the wraps off of their first artistic collaboration at the Art Institute of Chicago.

“This collaboration fits perfectly with my work because we share a very keen sense of conviction in the importance of incorporating strong environmental principles in all our endeavors.”

Commissioned by Samsung and entitled Anima Terra by Yves Behar, the new piece is described as an abstracted topographic surface made of thin layers of formed metal slats that are individually and invisibly lit to enable a range of dynamic lighting effects. Anima Terra, which in Latin means ‘living earth’ or ‘living landscape’, interacts with the Samsung LED TVs set up as part of the installation to display the dynamic lighting effects of the piece.

The creative partnership between Samsung and Yves Behar was established to create striking works of art that highlight the beauty, environmental efficiency and magic of LED technology, which Samsung has incorporated into its TVs to enable dramatic reductions in power consumption and materials usage.

Yves Behar is a strong advocate of sustainable design and has applauded Samsung’s focus on LED technology as a means to help consumers lead a greener digital lifestyle.

“Samsung’s new lineup of TVs captures the essence of a brighter future,” said Behar. “This collaboration fits perfectly with my work because we share a very keen sense of conviction in the importance of incorporating strong environmental principles in all our endeavors.”

Referring to the inspiration for Anima Terra, Yves Behar said “For this installation I was inspired by an idea that has become a recurring theme in my work – the use of light to symbolize the “inner glow” or “life within” an otherwise static sculptural object. This urge to make visible the unseen forces that animate and regulate all living things remains a constant source of inspiration to me.”

Joseph Rosa, the John H. Bryan Chair of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago talked about the significance of the artwork and the environmental importance and timeliness of the collaboration between Samsung and Yves Behar.

"Anima Terra could not be a more fitting work for our inaugural exhibition in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago,” said Rosa. “Artists and designers have always looked to technology both as a source of inspiration and a vehicle for cutting-edge ideas. Anima Terra represents this perfect union of form and innovation, and, in its insistence on environmental efficiency, embodies our very moment in history.”

The unveiling of Anima Terra coincides with the opening of the striking new Modern Wing at the Institute, a 264,000 square foot facility designed by Priztker Prize-winning architect, Renzo Piano. The new wing will house highly prestigious works of 20^th and 21^st century art, including several pieces by the famed Spanish painter, Pablo Picasso. Anima Terra is installed in the Institute’s permanent collection.

Boo-keun Yoon, President of Samsung’s Visual Display Division, addressed the importance of creating products that enable consumers to make smaller environmental footprints and suggested that collaborating with creative talents like Yves Behar can spur further corporate innovation.

“We share Yves Behar’s deep concern for sustainable design,” said Yoon. “Anima Terra is a groundbreaking work by Yves Behar and we’re very pleased to be a part of it and to have it unveiled at the opening of this beautiful new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.”

About Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2007 consolidated sales of US$105 billion. Employing approximately 150,000 people in 134 offices in 62 countries, the company consists of two main business units: Digital Media & Communications and Device Solution. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.

About the Artist

Yves Behar is an award-winning industrial designer and the founder of fuseproject, a San Francisco based industrial design studio dedicated to the development of the emotional experience of brands through story-telling. Behar is highly regarded for his use of technology in his art and is also recognized as a leader in the movement to promote natural and sustainable ways of living and consuming. Among his many accolades, his work for OLPC was named Design of the Year by the London Design Museum, 2008, and selected in the list of ’25 visionaries’ by Time magazine, 2007, Yves is also a 10-time recipient of the coveted Red Dot Design Award since 2004.

About the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago

Nearly a decade in the making, the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago now opens its doors. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, the Modern Wing is in the heart of downtown Chicago and showcases the museum’s exemplary collections of twentieth- and twenty-first –century art, architecture, design and photography. With the addition of the Modern Wing and the renovation of the existing buildings, the Art Institute, now the second largest art museum in the country with the finest modern and contemporary collections of any encyclopedic museum, reflects the civic commitment of Chicagoans and the city’s constant embrace of the future.

About the Modern Premiere

Since its founding, the Art Institute of Chicago has been devoted to collecting art of its time and supporting the work of the very best artists, designers, and architects of the modern and contemporary periods. The Modern Wing embodies this long-standing dedication of the museum to the present and to the future, ushering the Art Institute fully and elegantly into the twenty-first century.

The 264,000-square-foot Modern Wing will house the Art Institute’s collections of modern European art and contemporary art, with new gallery space for the collections in photography and architecture and design. The permanent collection galleries on the third floor will be installed with the museum’s world-renowned collection of European painting and sculpture from approximately 1900, including the work of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Constantin Brancusi, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Salvador Dali, and other leading artists. The permanent collection galleries on the second floor will house the museum’s revelatory collection of contemporary art, from the work of mid-20^th-century American artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning to installations of the work of Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Robert Gover, Charles Ray, the Chicago “Imagist” school, and Eva Hesse. Photography galleries and a “black box” or new media, gallery will be found on the first floor, with additional second-floor galleries devoted to the museum’s collection in the fields of architecture and design.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=5966125&lang=en