You won’t need to remember the insanely easy Louvre password “Louvre” to get its artworks on a Samsung telly, but you will need to pay for it.
The cost of living pressures are up and it seems like everything is rising still. You won’t want to, but you only need to glance at the increasing cost of streaming services and mobile phone bills and internet costs and groceries and so on and so on to find that while things may not seem as bleak as a few years ago, costs are still up.
It means we’re probably still cutting back in places, whether that means buying something a little nice for us and the walls, or even planning a trip overseas.
Try as we might, not all of us can afford a trip to France to see its art, not can we all find the funds to show some new art on our walls.
In fact, in an unusual spot of research by Samsung, the company says 48 percent of 26-35 year old aspire to own a famous piece of art, even if they know it’s unreality.
By comparison, the same amount of respondents (from 1040 people surveyed, so a small amount) are dreaming of when they can go to Paris to see the Louvre, with 45 percent saying they’d like to have more art in their home.
It seems many of us have more wall space than funds to jump on a trip and see the world’s art, human made as most of it is.
Indeed, with the world seeing so much AI-generated imagery, Samsung’s research also found that 25 percent of Aussies don’t care if artwork is made by AI or an artist, but that an overwhelming 78 percent believe art made by humans is more valuable than AI-generated art.
Basically, we can make art out of nothing and show it on our walls, but it has nothing on art made by its real-life counterparts, even if we can’t afford it to be printed in place.
Samsung’s solution for this comes in the form of its TVs, with its 2025 models of The Frame and The Frame Pro screens essentially being giant picture frames and TVs combined, and affording access to the Samsung Art Store, an online service that provides access to over 3000 artworks from artists and galleries around the world, the Louvre included.
While you won’t need to memorise the gallery’s obscenely easy WiFi password to gain access, the service does cost $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year, and provides access to art until the subscription ends. Essentially, you’re not purchasing art as a long-term license, but as a subscription model, though it does work on several Samsung Frame TVs provided you use the same account on both devices.
It’s not something limited to just Frame TVs, either.
If the idea of a framed TV doesn’t excite and you’d prefer one of the modern high-end screens instead, Samsung’s QLED models also apparently support the art store this year onwards, making it possible to bring art to a wall (via a wall-mounted TV) or a living room all too easily.
You might even match it with a Music Frame speaker, though its art doesn’t run off a screen and is static, rather like another picture frame speaker IKEA used to make.
“The Frame TV and the Art Store were a revolutionary pairing that brought the calibre of MoMA, The Met, and Tate Modern into Australian living rooms,” said Simon Howe, Director of Audio Visual at Samsung Australia.
“The aim was to provide Australians with a virtual pass to access works from the world’s most talented artists spread across various countries, all from the comfort of home,” he said.
Samsung isn’t the only maker of an art-styled screen to be offered in Australia, with LG’s G-series OLED focusing on gallery minimalism and Hisense delivering its own “Canvas” inspired push for the frame. Neither offers a store in the same way, it seems, but art can be found on each or downloaded to the screen.
In either case, you won’t need to set aside the money to book a trip to see the art, even if you might need to pay for a new TV to experience it perpetually in your home. That’s almost like owning the art. Almost.
