An ad exec hired to pull off MoMA’s massive subway campaign thought he could improve its famed artwork by having the crew of the city’s notorious “Poster Boy” slice and dice reproductions of them.
But the plan backfired when the museum labeled the rogue operation a horrible act of “vandalism.”
Douglas Jaeger, head of The Happy Corp., which MoMA entrusted to design all the subway ad space in Brooklyn’s largest station, admitted his responsibility in the bizarre publicity stunt.
But he tried to rationalize having his own client’s posters wrecked without permission.
“If someone who is getting acclaim as an artist does something to your campaign, does that make it more valuable or less valuable?” he pondered in an interview posted yesterday on New York magazine’s Web site.
Significantly less valuable, says MoMA.
“The museum deplores any kind of vandalism and we are distressed that this happened, did not condone or authorize it and hope it doesn’t happen again,” MoMA said in a statement yesterday.
Jaeger and the locally famous vandal’s crew donned MoMA jackets and entered Brooklyn’s massive Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street subway station at around 2 a.m. Saturday. They convinced station guards that they were authorized to wreck the ads, the magazine said.
They proceeded to slice and dice several of the ads, including giving Warhol’s “Marilyn” a nose job and slapping the image of an angry whale onto a swimming pool.
Jaeger told New York magazine he orchestrated the mass mashing because it was “inevitable” that the celebrated subway vandal – whose real name is Henry Matyjewicz – would eventually have done it himself.
Jaeger refused to drop a dime on Poster Boy, who’s already facing charges in Brooklyn for a slew of similar subway-station ad slashings – and never identified him as taking part in the cut-and-slash operation.
A police investigation has now been launched at the urging of angry execs at CBS Outdoor, a contractor the MTA uses to sell its space.
MoMA would not discuss the state of its relationship with The Happy Corp.
“We are not in a position to talk about this,” said museum spokeswoman Kim Mitchell.
The MTA said yesterday it is furious the museum didn’t immediately sever ties with the ad agency.
“It is shocking that someone who claims to run a legitimate business in New York would so blatantly break the law and vandalize our property,” said MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin.
Matyjewicz, 27, could not be reached yesterday. He’s free on bail on a series of petty criminal charges.
Police said they were seeking Jaeger, 33, for questioning. He did not return a call to his office.