While our mind was focused on gold pills to make your shit sparkle and Calvin Klein billboards dripping with pink paint, we missed a smaller, but still tall, outdoor installation for the opening of the New Museum. This pink tall bike, with a frame welded in the shape of the museum’s logo, was locked just across the Bowery on Prince Street in December.

The pink tall bike has obvious similarities to failed attempts by Brooklyn Industries and DKNY to use bicycles in their marketing. Two years ago, Brooklyn Industries put tall bikes in their store windows, which became targets of the acid etched message, “BIKE CULTURE NOT 4 SALE”. More recently, DKNY painted their website address on a bunch of orange bikes, which many found too similar looking to the ghost bike memorials for dead cyclists, and locked them up across the city for a Fashion Week promotion of bicycling themselves. Considering this broken, unrideable, mono-color, tall bike embodies elements of both failed campaigns, it is surprising it has drawn little to no attention, good or bad. In the spirit of the museum’s opening exhibit, you could safely call this an Unfailure.

Perhaps the bike’s biggest flaw is taking up one of the precious few spots to lock up within several blocks of the New Museum. It’s a problem easily fixed with a handful of bike racks, free from the city. To their credit though, the one time I paid admission at the museum, a staff member noticed I had arrived on bike and gave me half off the ticket price, in exchange for filling out a card requesting bike parking, which I happily did.

Photo by Clemente on Flickr.