Samsung Electronics Co.’s high-end Serif TV is now available at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), one of the landmark places in New York City. It is the first time in the history of the art museum to sell commercial TVs, sitting with works of the great masters such as Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Edouard Manet and Paul Gauguin.

The South Korean electronics giant held an official launch event of Serif TV with more than 130 guests including high-profile figures from the electronics, fashion and interior industry and journalists at MoMA in Manhattan on Wednesday (local time). It is Samsung’s first try to choose an art museum as a launching place of its product.

The Serif TV was designed by world-renowned furniture designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and inspired by the shape of the letter ‘I’ in a serif font. It comes with four retro-style legs to make it look like a piece of furniture.

Samsung keeps up its upscale push with Serif TV. The 24, 32 and 40-inch Serif TVs went on sale in nine European countries including the U.K., Germany and France in late September last year, but they are only available at luxury department stores and high-end furniture stores. In France, only the Centre Georges Pompidou and Le Bon Marche department stores are exclusively selling the TV. In the U.S. the 40-inch TVs are only available at three MoMA Design Stroes in New York, MoMA online stores, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in Manhattan and a handful of luxury department stores for $1,499.

“Stunning picture quality and crisp sound clarity are what consumers expect from Samsung,” said Dave Das, senior vice president of Samsung Electronics America. “However, our research also tells us that there is a subset of consumers, largely underserved by the TV industry thus far, who care just as deeply about design and how their TV complements the aesthetics of their home environment,” he added.

The company plans to release the Serif TV in Canada on July 25.

By Hwang In-hyuk

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