The New Museum and Calvin Klein Make a Splash

Notice anything funny about the Calvin Klein billboard below? No, not the hot pink splashing. The giant ad that hangs above Lafayette and Houston has a secret in the "negative space" left by the splashed paint. The silhouette is of the new New Museum building on Bowery. Here is what the billboard looked like over the past few days up until last night:

And as Josh Spear pointed out yesterday a "stage 3 reveal" took place sometime overnight, making the billboard currently look a little less abstract:

The two establishments joined forces for an art-fashion splashstravaganza...now that's what we call synergy! We're just happy they didn't pair up with American Apparel. Here's what the New Museum told us:

"As part of our ad launch campaign produced by Droga 5, the New Museum has partnered with Calvin Klein on an unconventional initiative that seemed consistent with the museum’s focus upon new art and new ideas. Since Monday, the famed Calvin Klein billboard on Houston at Lafayette has been “defaced” with pink paint and today, the drips have revealed the shape of the building and our new brand, announcing our public opening on Dec. 1st. The co-branded billboard will remain in place until December 3rd. Calvin Klein Collection has partnered with the New Museum for the first major campaign preview celebrating the Museum’s new home on the Bowery."

Photo via Josh Spear and Tien Mao.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Carlson in News on November 28, 2007 11:05 AM

Comments [rss]

chris

How boring. So, you've a museum that shills for corporate sponsors worse than MoMA ever did, and does really trite faux-viral campaigns, _and_ is full of kinda bad new media art.

Bravo.

bnystudio

Hokey=Gimmicky! What happened to the cutting edge, out of the mainstream NewMuseum? Just another museum keeping up with the joneses and falling to hype.

smitty

how passe.

JRod5417

Meh...

RedWhiteandBrooklyn

Why didn't YOU think of that?

bklyngrrl

...zzzz... "synergy" ..zzzzz.. "demographics" zzz ..."marketing"... zzz ..."branding" blah blah blah

matty

"Kind of proves his point, no?"

it actually does.

maybe he can splash this in an ultimate piece of post-modern media irony.

matty

"Kind of proves his point, no?"

it actually does.

maybe he can splash this in an ultimate piece of post-modern media irony.

rtd2101

Hmm. It only took a few years for the splasher (or at least his concept) to become co-opted and turned into a "brand".

Kind of proves his point, no?

smitty

Lame.

Does anyone remember their display of that poo machine about 5 years back?

Tgirl

pretentious

drewo

per the New Museum: the famed Calvin Klein billboard on Houston at Lafayette

Famous? Sez who?

Gregoire

The New Museum has been cleverly 'leaking' into other advertisements as well, such as Radar and Blender's sidewalk ads.

MT

You mean The New Museum is The Splasher?!?!?

matty

kind of hard to understand at first particularly if you don't know what the shape of the building is like.

also i would much rather it be american apparel. those ads are still hot after all these years.