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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Whitney Gould, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Aug. 17--With its movable, winged roof and marbled gallerias, Santiago Calatrava's all-white addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum is an eye-popping setting for art. But until now, no one imagined it would end up being used as the backdrop for TV commercials touting an anti-cholesterol drug.

Unseemly? Museum officials don't think so. The ads for Lipitor, the latest in a lengthening list of product promotions shot in and around the building, bring in needed revenue -- no one will say how much -- and help raise the profile of the museum.

The commercials, now appearing on local television stations, show Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart, standing in front of the museum and striding through its glassy reception hall and cathedral-like gallerias. In one scene, a human heart and arteries are digitally inserted within one of the galleria's triangular arches.

The heart-artery image "gave us a mild frisson," David Gordon, the museum's director, acknowledged. "But it was a very artistic use of digital photography."

Officials at Kaplan Thaler Group in New York City, which made the commercials, said they were not authorized to discuss them. But Alison Lehanski, a spokeswoman for Pfizer Inc., which makes Lipitor, said the museum was chosen because its high-tech appearance dovetailed nicely with the commercial's message.

"What was attractive about the art museum was its clinical, scientific, cutting-edge design," Lehanski said. "It's the perfect setting for information on heart health because it suggests innovation."

Pfizer isn't the only firm to have seized on the building's striking profile. Within the last five years, at least eight other companies, many of them auto manufacturers, have used the museum to show off their products and services in print and TV ads and trade publications. According to Katie Heldstab, the museum's communications coordinator, those companies include Toyota, Porsche, Chrysler, Lexus, Pontiac, General Motors, Boston Store and Hubbell Lighting. Calatrava's buildings and bridges in Europe are also popular settings for ads.

Gordon said the museum had been actively marketing itself to ad agencies. "We're becoming known for our futuristic look," he said.

He would not say how much money such ads bring in annually for the museum; its federal income tax forms don't provide a breakdown of such revenue. "But it's a significant amount, and it's going up this year," he said.

Heldstab said the museum's fees are decided case by case and vary from $1,000 to $10,000 for each shoot.

Gordon said the Lipitor ad was shot about a month ago and took three days. As with other such commercials, he said, the production work was "very unobtrusive" and was not allowed to disrupt the operations of the museum. He said the only negative feedback he had seen was from a blogger who "disapproved of our being associated with Big Pharma."

Are there any products that the museum would not want to be linked with?

"It's unlikely that we'd get involved with products that get us into trouble," Gordon said. "I don't think we'll be doing a martini ad anytime soon, for example"- a reference to February's disastrous Martinifest, in which drunken revelers vomited, passed out and climbed onto artwork.

What about, say, Viagra?

"We haven't been approached by them," Gordon said, laughing. "But I'm fairly liberal about these kinds of things. Maybe you could have a Viagra ad accompanied by the wings of the roof rising. It could be incredibly effective, don't you think?"

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Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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