Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts 2011

Area of Work: Visual artist, writer, inventor and polymath

Date: 10 November 2011

Place of Ceremony: Assembly Hall

Host Institution: University of Tartu

Host Country: Tartu, Estonia

The World Cultural Council celebrated its 28th Award Ceremony with the host of the University of Tartu.

Todd Siler, visual artist, writer, inventor and polymath has been selected as the winner of the 2011 Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts.

This recognition is for his extraordinarily creative and innovative contributions to contemporary and visual arts, for stimulating creativity, inspiring innovation and uniting art and science to enrich the experience of creative learning.

It is a prize granted to Todd Siler for his revolutionary work in stimulating human creativity, expressed in his original art works, his inspired publications, in particular his books “Think like a Genius” (Bantam Books, 1997) and “Breaking the Mind Barrier” (Simon and Schuster, 1990; Touchstone Books, 1992), and his incredibly extensive educational work.

Todd Siler´s lifelong development and practice of “ArtScience,” a process he created in 1975, seeks to fully integrate the arts and sciences towards advancing humankind, strengthening civil society and improving the state of the world, while creating a sustainable future. There are now over 30,000 organizations worldwide using the ArtScience process, principles and practices.

Todd has produced a rich corpus of paintings, drawings, collages and other works, including large-scale public pieces, which embody his original ideas on the connections between art and science.

In 1975, Dr. Siler invented the Metaphorming process, which is a set of universal creativity and communication tools for realizing human potential. The process enables people to think, create, communicate and perform at their highest level to achieve their goals. In addition, he has created various types of educational software, such as Think Like a Genius, and holds various patents on a range of inventions.

Todd Siler received his Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies in Psychology and Art from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; in 1986, he became the first and only visual artist to receive a doctorate from the Institute. He is a member of the board of directors for the Foundation for Human Potential in Chicago, and an International Advisory Board Member for the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, Korea, as well as a Forum Fellow and presenter at the 1999 and 2001 Annual Meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

For over 25 years, Todd Siler has presented numerous keynote addresses, lectures and workshops throughout the world on creativity, innovation, collaborative learning, informal learning, and other related topics. His multiple lectures have explored the possibilities of applying arts-based learning tools to advance art-science-technology innovations and educational initiatives; they have been delivered to specific and general audiences at leading museums, cultural centres and schools for the arts and sciences.

Internationally recognized as a visual artist, Todd Siler´s art has been represented over the past 30 years by one of the premiere art galleries in the world, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York City. His artworks are in numerous private and public collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (20th Century Collection), the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum in Moscow and the BelsarVerlag Print Archives in Stuttgart and Zurich, among many others.

Mr. Siler has spent his life teaching us, through his artwork, workshops and lectures, as well as his publications and inventions, how to use the creativity locked up in our brain. As Robert W. Galvin, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Motorola Inc, comments, “Todd inspires us to energize the least used talent of our brain: exceptional creativity”.

The Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts is conferred upon a renowned artist, sculptor, writer, poet, cinematographer, photographer, architect, musician or other performing artist, whose work constitutes a significant contribution to the artistic legacy of the world.