Hyundai Livart Partners With UK’s ‘Universal Everything’ and ‘Ab Rogers’

22 Pieces, Including Korea’s First Media Art Furniture and Color-Focused Designs

Hyundai Livart is unveiling a wide-ranging lineup of designer furniture created in collaboration with global artists. By applying artistic techniques to furniture and presenting designs specialized in color, the company aims to lead trends in the domestic furniture market on the strength of the differentiated design and manufacturing competitiveness unique to Hyundai Livart.

Total interior company Hyundai Livart is launching a furniture collection produced through ‘Art&DesignProject 2022,’ a global artist collaboration project, and will run a pop-up store on the 4th floor of The Hyundai Seoul through September 18.

Seven influential global artists and designers from the UK as well as Poland, Ukraine, Spain, Finland, and Switzerland took part, creating furniture collections by artist that span sofas, beds, and tables. There are 22 pieces in all, with the overseas artists handling product design while Hyundai Livart takes charge of planning, production, and sales. Art&DesignProject 2022 is a project that presents original designer furniture through collaboration with artists such as internationally acclaimed artists and designers.

Hyundai Livart’s move into such collaboration projects with global artists is part of the ‘brand premiumization strategy’ being pursued company-wide. A Hyundai Livart official explained, “By collaborating with experts in the new realm of art, we have upgraded furniture design a notch through bold attempts never before seen in existing furniture.”

To this end, Hyundai Livart established a dedicated department, ‘Creative Lab,’ in 2020 and has spent about two years preparing the global artist collaboration project. Creative Lab is composed of roughly 20 furniture-development specialists across fields, including furniture designers, engineers, production experts, and MDs.

A flagship collection of this project is ‘Furniture in Motion,’ created in collaboration with the UK-based media artist group ‘Universal Everything (UE).’ Its defining feature is being the first among domestic brand furniture to apply ‘media art’ to furniture. According to the company, by using ‘lenticular lenses’ that create an optical illusion depending on the viewing angle, the media art works applied to the front of the furniture appear to move even without any power supply.

Fifteen furniture pieces—such as tables and cabinets decorated with media art works like ‘Floral’ and ‘Palms’—will each be sold in limited editions of 100, priced in the 1 million to 4 million won range. Notably, this marks the first time Universal Everything has undertaken a furniture design collaboration; previously, it directed the media art for the 2012 London Olympics and carried out various collaborations with global companies including Hyundai Motor, Apple, and Nike.

Designer furniture emphasizing bold colors is also on display. The ‘Inner Lives’ collection, created in collaboration with the UK architecture and interior design firm ‘Ab Rogers Design (ARD),’ stands out for designs that skillfully combine color with solid-wood furniture using a variety of artistic techniques.

The designs maximize a reversal effect—by combining blue and white in equal halves to emphasize balance, or by finishing the furniture’s exterior in solid wood while using bright pastel colors such as pink and green on the interior. Four pieces, including a sofa, a vanity, and a wine cabinet, are being presented, priced in the 2 million to 6 million won range.

Hyundai Livart also plans to actively capture demand from customers with a strong interest in original designer furniture. First, it is opening a pop-up store on the 4th floor of The Hyundai Seoul through September 18 to showcase this ‘Art&DesignProject 2022’ collection. Building on this, the company plans to sequentially operate Art&DesignProject 2022 collection pop-up stores at major department stores such as the Pangyo and Trade Center branches within the year. It also plans to display the collection at major offline stores, including flagship stores such as ‘Livart Total Gangnam.’

▲ Hyper Nature cabinet featuring media art by Universal Everything (UE)