Promotions for Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Album Projected on Major New York Museums

Promotions for Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” album were recently projected onto several museums in New York City ahead of its hotly-anticipated release on March 29.

The museums featuring the projection were the Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum, New Museum, and the Museum of Arts and Design. At the Guggenheim, the words “This ain’t a country album. This is a “Beyoncé” album.” were projected onto its iconic round exterior designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The lines are quotes from an Instagram post from Beyoncé (319 million followers) on March 19 detailing her thoughts about the country music genre, how she did not feel welcomed, and the criticisms she experienced before becoming the first Black woman with a number one single on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.

The singer posted an Instagram story around 10pm ET on Wednesday March 20 highlighting the coordinates of the museum.

The cover image of “Cowboy Carter” features Beyoncé dressed as a rodeo queen, riding side-saddle on a white horse while holding the American flag. This image was also projected onto the exteriors of the New Museum, the Whitney Museum, as well as the Museum of Arts and Design the night of March 20.

The Guggenheim’s own Instagram account (2.7 million followers) acknowledged the musician’s fanbase with a post on the morning of March 21 about Franz Marc’s 1910 painting Three Horses Drinking that led with “This ain’t Texas.” The same sentence is the opening line of “Texas Hold ‘Em”, the co-lead single of “Cowboy Carter”.

Some fans online also noted that the Guggenheim’s current exhibition, “Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility” is a presentation of “more than 100 works by a group of 28 artists, the majority of whom are Black and more than half of whom are women.”

Beyoncé’s previous incorporation of a museum during an album launch was in 2018, when she and Jay-Z released their collaborative album “Everything Is Love” and a video for the song “Apeshit”. Much of the video was filmed at the Louvre in Paris and included dramatic shots of numerous masterpieces from the museum’s collection, including the Mona Lisa. The museum’s website still features a self-guided tour of the highlights from the “Apeshit” video.

Representatives of the museums did not immediately respond to requests for comment from ARTnews.