Red Bull Arts New York
2013–2020
A new modelfor corporatepatronage.
An experimental, non-commercial art space built to give artists the freedom and resources to realize ambitious work.
Across seven years, Red Bull Arts New York presented museum-scale exhibitions and public programming without asking artists to promote the brand behind them.
Project information
Role
- Marketing Director
- Red Bull New York
- 2014–2019
Mandate
Build an owned arts platform that increased Red Bull's cultural relevance by translating “Giving Wings to People and Ideas” into a credible model of corporate patronage.
Responsibility
- Strategy and Positioning
- Team and Budget Leadership
- Operations
- Marketing and Communications
- Audience Development
- Agency Management
- Gift Shop Operations
Scale
- Seven-Year Platform
- Three Major Exhibitions Annually
- Approximately 60 Programming Days Annually
- Three-Person Core Team
- Seven–Ten Contracted Collaborators
The work
Corporate arts programs often ask artists to make brands appear culturally relevant. Red Bull Arts New York reversed that exchange: the brand provided the platform, resources, and reach while allowing the art to exist on its own terms. Then we got out of the way.
Artists retained creative control. The curatorial team, led by Max Wulf, operated to museum-level standards. Exhibitions were free and open to the public. Red Bull did not require commercial messaging or brand integration within the work.
Leading strategy, core team, budget, operations, marketing, and communications, we were responsible for making that model both credible and sustainable, aligning the needs of artists and curators with the realities of operating a brand-owned institution.
The program mounted three large-scale exhibitions each year, supported by talks, performances, screenings, education, and public programs. Marketing focused on the work itself: building distinct audiences around every exhibition while establishing Red Bull Arts as a trusted cultural platform in its own right.
The goal was not to make art serve the brand. It was to demonstrate what the brand believed by serving the art.
Independent recognition
“New York’s venturesome Red Bull Arts”
Selected coverage
- The New York Times
- The New Yorker
- Artforum
- Art in America
- Architectural Digest
- Flash Art
Annual impact
30,000
Annual visitors
3
Major exhibitions annually
60
Programming days annually
0 → 35K
Instagram community
Typical annual program scale. Social audience built from launch.
Red Bull Arts earned its credibility through the ambition of the work. Rammellzee: Racing for Thunder assembled more than 150 works in the artist's largest survey to date. Total Proof presented the GALA Committee's covert intervention into Melrose Place comprehensively in New York for the first time. Scenario in the Shade subsequently traveled to the Istanbul Biennial and institutions in Copenhagen and Lisbon.
The result was an arts institution with an audience and reputation of its own—and a practical demonstration that corporate patronage could create brand value by giving artists more freedom, not less.
Selected leadership
Max Wulf
Director and Chief Curator
Candice Strongwater
Associate Curator and Head of Public Programs