After participating in his first group sculpture exhibition in 1988 Tel-Aviv born artist Arik Levy left Israel for Switzerland to study at the Art Center College of Design, La Tour de Peilz. It was in Switzerland that Levy discovered what would become one the most sustained passions of his truly multidisciplinary career: Design.
After taking his degree, Levy went to work for Seiko Epson in Japan. Despite the brevity of his tenure with the company (he would return to Europe for good in 1992), Levy’s contributions to its design work were such that he was awarded the esteemed Seiko Epson prize.
Once back in Europe Levy taught industrial design at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle in Paris, the meanwhile shifting artistic course again, this time with forays into the world of set design. During the early to mid-nineties Levy forged a new path in the field, creating backdrops for the likes of the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Finnish National Ballet, and the Batsheva Dance Company in Israel.
Were it not for his reputation as a sculptor and designer dramatic shifts of this nature could be said to characterize Levy’s career. His use of media has never grown stagnant—he is considered variously a photographer, a filmmaker, and a video artist as well, and has even created hi-tech clothing and accessories for firms in Asia. When asked to designate his work, Levy calls himself a “feeling artist.”
In 1997 Arik Levy started L Design. Composed of twenty designers and graphic artists, the firm’s creation marked Levy’s return to world of sculpture and design. This refocusing did not, however, signal a departure from his work in other media. L Design produces work in video, branding, and wall art, often integrating these disciplines with design and the creation of objects to create larger spaces and environments. For Levy, design is dynamic—or as he says, “an uncontrolled muscle.”
Levy may be known best for his Rock series, an ever-growing sequence of sculptures shaped like rocks and composed of reflective surfaces, like polished stainless steel. Started in 1999, the rocks have assumed different forms and functions, and are sometimes displayed on their own, as sculpture, or in an assemblage or environment as objets, furniture, or lighting.
Arik Levy’s work has won dozens of design awards and is collected in public and private collections all over the world, notably in The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, The Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, The Seoul Arts Center, Hangaram, The Design Museum, Seoul, The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, The Fond National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Triennale Design Museum, Milan, and in The Art Institute of Chicago.
