How Samsung Advances the Legacy of Consumer Design

A s rapid advances in technology and industrial manufacturing reached the general public around the turn of the twentieth century, everyday items suddenly spoke of a new, imaginative future. From Coca-Cola bottles to Polaroid cameras, Vitsoe shelving to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair, innovative products attained mythic status for blending function and form. With the Bauhaus – the revolutionary school founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany – came a group who helped democratize elegant industrial design, bringing functional objects with aesthetic appeal to a wide audience.

The Bauhaus united disciplines, synthesizing fine art and craft into Gesamtkunstwerk or “total artwork,” while also celebrating the purity of raw materials and sleek, geometric forms. This innovative school, explained the critic Wolf von Eckhardt in 1961, “created the patterns and set the standards of present-day industrial design” – a sentiment that remains true over sixty years later. Their timeless principles of simple, utilitarian design continue to inspire creatives around the world.

These ideals live on in Samsung’s less-is-more approach, which centers design around the product’s function and the experiences it delivers to the user. Like the Bauhaus, whose design philosophy thrived on a multidisciplinary approach to creativity, Samsung organizes workshops with artists, architects, product designers and other professionals from different backgrounds and disciplines. The company takes a holistic approach to product innovation, synthesizing knowledge from experts across traditionally divided categories and achieving meaningful innovation through collaboration.

Their newest range of MICRO LED displays is a case-in-point. A virtuosic achievement of shared expertise, ranging in size from 89 to 110 inches, the commanding displays are based on a revolutionary technology that breaks the barrier of brightness, delivers the ultimate contrast through self-lit pixels forged from sapphires and introduces a stunning new level of visual perfection. The ultimate expression of less is more, its nearly invisible bezel blurs the boundary between what is displayed and the space around it – maximizing the immersive experience with a screen that appears to float in the air.

The best consumer products transcend utility, sparking moments of emotional connection – a position that MICRO LED uniquely embodies. Designed as furniture in the 1950s, the TV always sat in between domestic décor and technological marvel. No longer an “in-between,” MICRO LED becomes the center of the connected home with capabilities that range from a simple entertainment display to the control panel of the Smart Home – all in a form that can blend discretely into its surroundings or make a bold artistic statement.

A leader in forward-thinking design principles centered around contemporary life, Samsung spurred a market revolution in the TV industry when it introduced the concept of the TV designed around the modern lifestyle.

This approach began with the launch of The Serif at the London Design Festival in 2015. A minimalist, I-shaped TV that sits naturally in any environment yet makes a bold, personal statement, The Serif was followed in 2017 by the groundbreaking Yves Béhar–designed “The Frame” – a new concept that marked another bold reimagining of what a television can be. A TV when it’s on, and art when it’s off, it seamlessly becomes the perfect canvas for more than 2,500 digital artworks, including works from the Louvre, Tate, Prado and Hermitage museums.

Samsung displays are also wonderful showcases for contemporary artists, such as Refik Anadol, whose installation Refik Anadol: Unsupervised opens at MoMA later this month and whose two media pieces are included courtesy of the 2022 MICRO LED display.

Whether it’s MICRO LED, the ultimate expression of luxury home entertainment, or the ability to display art on your Frame TV, Samsung delivers technology which beautifully balances innovation and design,” said Sarah Tobin, Vice President, Integrated Marketing, Samsung Home Entertainment. “What better way to illustrate this concept than to present world class artwork in partnership with Sotheby’s.”

The MICRO LED display, the ultimate embodiment of Samsung’s imaginative approach to balancing technology and feeling, is installed in Sotheby’s lobby during the exhibition of The New York Sales, now through 17 November. Sotheby’s is delighted to once again partner with Samsung to present this series of six auctions showcasing world-class artworks across the major movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Alongside these groundbreaking works, this visionary device is the technological embodiment of the art historical dialogue present in the galleries. Just as artists in The Contemporary and Now Evening Auctions built upon the established ideals of their artistic forebears, Samsung expands its legacy of design principles that have changed the world.

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