Clyfford Still Museum Opens, to Intrigue

A breaking print, poster, mobile contest and experiential advertising campaign supports the November 18 grand opening of the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. Still was a major leader and influence of abstract expressionism. Mid-career (1950s) he turned his back on the New York art world. The campaign is the museum’s first-ever advertising and the first-ever by advertising agency Cactus, Denver for its new client.

The goal of the campaign is to create intrigue for an outsider artist influential enough to deserve, and rebellious enough to get, his own museum. One-thousand QR-coded, 11” x 17” posters going up across Denver show one of eight Clyfford Still artworks — and link to the mobile art hunt contest app, Uncover the Mystery. Users are challenged to find and scan all 8 and, based on their success, win prizes up to a San Francisco trip for two. (Four posters will be relatively easy to find; four others, much less so.) You can follow the museum on Facebook for hints about the poster locations.

A 200-foot-long 3M heat transfer wallscape will go up outside the Denver Pavillions.

Three print full pages. will run nationally in Art Forum, and in local newspapers and magazines including the Denver Post and 5280.

And in a trowel paint experiential event, a huge, 12’ x 8’ blank canvas was and will be put up at Denver’s November 4 Art Walk and at other cultural goings-on, where art lovers will be invited to take up a trowel and paint like Clyfford Still did: thickly, with a palette of black, red, yellow and tan. The trowels, branded with the museum’s opening date, are the participants’ to keep.

The print advertising broke in November issues. All other media (posters, mobile app, wallscape, experiential) break November 4. When it opens on November 18, the Clyfford Still Museum will be the largest museum (2400 works) ever devoted to one artist.

Credits:
CD: Norm Shearer
AD: Jorge Lamora
CW: Elliot Nordstrom