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Beyoncé posted an Instagram story yesterday evening that showed an image of the Guggenheim Museum's coordinates in New York City, Variety reported.
Then photos circulated on social media that showed quotes from the superstar's quote from earlier this week on the museum's facade promoting Act 2: Cowboy Carter's upcoming release: “This ain't a country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé' album.”
Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter at the Guggenheim
However, the Guggenheim claimed that it didn't know that Beyoncé would use the museum to promote her album.
“The Guggenheim was not informed about and did not authorize this activation,” the museum's representatives said in a statement to Variety.
“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 statement continued.
When fans went to the location, they posted photos of the museum's blank facade, which suggests the projection wasn't there at all. Others said that the projection only lasted a short moment, or that the images that were being shared online were edited to include the words.
As if that isn't confusing enough, the Guggenheim posted another seemingly Beyoncé reference: an image of Franz Marc's 1910 painting called Three Horses Drinking. The caption said, “This ain't Texas,” which are the first lines from the singer's hit new single Texas Hold ‘Em.
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This ain't a country album. It's a Beyoncé album.
This isn't the first time Beyoncé has used a museum in her albums. Six years ago, she and husband Jay-Z filmed the music video of APES**T at the Louvre. It would be logical to assume that this could also be a partnership with the Guggenheim Museum — with wires crossed, maybe. After all, the denial statement sent by the museum wasn't as strongly worded as it should be if it had been an egregious mistake, coupled with the follow-up post of the painting of the horses and the caption.
If you'll allow me to take you on conspiracy theory-adjacent rabbit hole, this could also be a sort of power move on Beyoncé's side. There's been a bit of controversy regarding her launch into the country music genre. Her original post of “This isn't a country album. This is a Beyoncé album,” could be her way of throwing shade at the genre that's historically shut out Black women.
In the early days of her song This Ain't Texas' release, there were some country music stations that didn't want to play the song because “We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station.”
However, the Beyhive came to the rescue and Beyoncé didn't just get love from said stations, she broke them and made history as the first Black woman to top the country music charts.
So not only is this a country music album, this is definitely a Beyoncé one.
