Beyoncé fans were delighted to see an advertisement for her upcoming album, “Cowboy Carter,” being projected onto the Guggenheim Museum in New York City just over a week before its March 29 release. The only problem is that the projection was not authorized by the venue.
Advertisements for the album were seen projected on several museums besides the Guggenheim, including the Whitney Museum, New Museum, and the Museum of Art and Design.
Museum reps shared in a statement with ARTnews that they did not authorize their building for that usage. They said Guggenheim staff “was not informed about and did not authorize this activation. However, we invite the public — including Beyoncé and her devoted fans — to visit the museum May 16–20 when we present projections by artist Jenny Holzer on the facade of our iconic building to celebrate the opening of her major exhibition.”
The projected image said, “This ain’t a country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album,” and included the album’s title and release date.
The Grammy Award-winning singer also posted a photo of the Guggenheim’s coordinates to her Instagram Story on Wednesday night, per Billboard.
The Guggenheim referenced Beyoncé’s new song, “Texas Hold ‘Em,” when posting Franz Marc’s 1910 painting “Three Horses Drinking” to Instagram on Thursday morning. The image caption began with, “This ain’t Texas,” which is a line from the song. The museum’s social account also shared an image of the unauthorized projection in Instagram Stories, adding a text overlay that said, “Hey beyonce!,” with a bee emoji.
Earlier this week, Beyoncé shared the official album cover for Cowboy Carter and discussed some of her motivation behind it on Instagram earlier this week.
View this post on Instagram
“I feel honored to be the first Black woman with the number one single on the Hot Country Songs chart. That would not have happened without the outpouring of support from each and every one of you. My hope is that years from now, the mention of an artist’s race, as it relates to releasing genres of music, will be irrelevant,” she wrote in the caption.
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“This album has been over five years in the making,” the post continued. “It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive. It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.”