Clyfford Still Museum: trowel

A poster-slash-mobile contest, and an experiential advertising campaign support the Nov. 18 grand opening of the Clyfford Still Museum, Denver. Still was a major leader and influence of abstract expressionism. In mid-career (1950s) he turned his back on the New York art world. The campaign goal is to create intrigue for an outsider artist influential enough to deserve, and rebellious enough to get, his own museum. (Headlines include “He refused to sell out before it was cool to refuse to sell out.”)

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.)

And in a trowel paint experiential event, a huge, 12’ x 8’ blank canvas goes up at Denver’s Art Walk and 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.