The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) is a privately owned museum whose stated aim is "to celebrate the labor of artists whose work would be displayed and appreciated in no other forum". It was originally in
Dedham, Massachusetts and is currently in
Boston, Massachusetts.
Its permanent collection includes over 700 pieces of "art too bad to be ignored", 25 to 35 of which are on public display at any one time.
MOBA was founded in 1994, after antique dealer Scott Wilson showed a painting he had recovered from the trash to some friends, who suggested starting a collection. Within a year, receptions held in Wilson's friends' home were so well-attended that the collection needed its own viewing space. The museum then moved to the basement of a theater in Dedham. Explaining the reasoning behind the museum's establishment, co-founder Jerry Reilly said in 1995: "While every city in the world has at least one museum dedicated to the best of art, MOBA is the only museum dedicated to collecting and exhibiting the worst."
To be included in MOBA's collection, works must be original and have serious intent, but they must also have significant flaws without being boring; curators are not interested in displaying deliberate
kitsch
Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste.
The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation wi ...
.
MOBA has been mentioned in dozens of off-the-beaten-path guides to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, featured in international newspapers and magazines, and has inspired several other collections throughout the world that set out to rival its own visual atrocities.
Deborah Solomon of ''
The New York Times Magazine
''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...
'' noted that the attention the Museum of Bad Art receives is part of a wider trend of museums displaying "the best bad art".
[Solomon, Deborah.]
In Praise of Bad Art
. ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', January 24, 1999 The museum has been criticized for being
anti-art
Anti-art is a loosely used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Somewhat paradoxically, anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage poi ...
, but the founders deny this, responding that its collection is a tribute to the sincerity of the artists who persevered with their art despite something going horribly wrong in the process. According to co-founder Marie Jackson, "We are here to celebrate an artist's right to fail, gloriously."
[The Gallery of the Garish Masterpieces of Bad Art]
". ''The Irish Times
''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
'', September 18, 1999. 9
History
The Museum of Bad Art was founded by antique dealer Scott Wilson, who discovered what has become the museum's signature piece—''Lucy in the Field with Flowers''—protruding from between two trash cans on a
Roslindale
Roslindale is a primarily residential neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, bordered by Jamaica Plain, Hyde Park, West Roxbury and Mattapan.
It is served by an MBTA Commuter Rail line, several MBTA bus lines and the MBTA Orange Line in nearby J ...
-area curb in Boston, among some garbage waiting to be collected. Wilson was initially interested only in the frame, but when he showed the picture to his friend Jerry Reilly, the latter wanted both the frame and the painting. He exhibited ''Lucy'' in his home, and encouraged friends to look for other bad art and notify Wilson of what they found.
[Gaines, Judith]
"Exhibiting Works of Trial and Error: Museum Finds Landscapes Gone Awry"
''The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', May 4, 2003. 9 When Wilson acquired another "equally lovely" piece and shared it with Reilly, they decided to start a collection. Reilly and his wife, Marie Jackson, held a party in their basement to exhibit the collection to date, and hosted a reception they facetiously titled "The Opening of the Museum of Bad Art".
[English, Bella]
''The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', April 29, 2007. Reg7
Regular showings of the pieces collected by Wilson, Reilly, and Jackson (and those donated by others), became too much for Reilly and Jackson's small home in
West Roxbury, Massachusetts
West Roxbury is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts bordered by Roslindale and Jamaica Plain to the northeast, the town of Brookline to the north, the cities and towns of Newton and Needham to the northwest and the town of Dedham to th ...
, as hundreds of people attended the receptions. The founders' initial attempt at dealing with their constrained exhibition space was to create the Virtual Museum Of Bad Art, a CD-ROM with a cast of 95 people that presented the MOBA art collection in a fictional imaginary museum. This fictional MOBA allowed the visitors not only to view the paintings but to go behind the scenes in the fictional museum.
The MOBA was officially founded in 1993, and its first exhibition was presented in March 1994.
![MOBA-MensroomEntrance](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/MOBA-MensroomEntrance.JPG)
Word of the museum's collection continued to spread until, according to "Permanent Interim Acting Director" Louise Reilly Sacco, "it got completely out of hand" when a group of senior citizens on a tour bus stopped to see it.
In 1995 the display space was moved to the basement of the Dedham Community Theatre, a building with an aesthetic described in 2004 as "ramshackle". The museum in Dedham had no fixed operating hours, instead being open while the theater upstairs was open. As ''
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' notes, the art collection was appropriately placed "just outside the men's room",
[English, Bella.]
Doing a Good Deed with Bad Art
. ''The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', February 8, 2009. Reg1 where sounds and smells carry to the collection and the constant flushing of the toilet "supposedly helps maintain a uniform humidity", according to the ''
South China Morning Post''.
[Wilson, David, "It May Be Art, But They Sure Ain't No Oil Paintings". '' South China Morning Post'', May 17, 2004. 5]
In MOBA's early days, the museum hosted traveling shows; on one occasion the works were hung from trees in the woods on
Cape Cod
Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...
for the "Art Goes Out the Window—The Gallery in the Woods".
Bad music was played during the public viewings to complete the ambiance. In an exhibition titled "Awash in Bad Art", 18 pieces of art were covered in shrink wrap for "the world's first drive-thru museum and car wash". Marie Jackson, formerly the Director of Aesthetic Interpretation noted, "We didn't put any watercolors in there."
A 2001 exhibition, "Buck Naked—Nothing But Nudes" featured all of the MOBA nudes hung in a local spa.
MOBA features its works in rotating collections. In 2003, "Freaks of Nature" focused on landscape artwork "gone awry". A 2006 exhibit titled "Hackneyed Portraits" was designed to "pick up some of the slack" when the
David Hockney
David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...
show at Boston's
Museum of Fine Arts closed.
[Johnson, Carolyn]
"So Bad It's Good: Dedham Museum Is Proud Home to Unforgettable Art That's Anything But Fine"
''The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', June 25, 2006. 1 MOBA unveiled its show "Nature Abhors a Vacuum and All Other Housework" in 2006; this format continues on the museum's website.
A second gallery opened in 2008 at the
Somerville Theatre
The Somerville Theatre is an independent movie theater and concert venue in the Davis Square neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, United States. Over one hundred years old, the Somerville Theatre started off as a vaudeville house and movie ...
in
Davis Square,
Somerville, Massachusetts
Somerville ( ) is a city located directly to the northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a total population of 81,045 people. With an area o ...
, where the collection was placed near both the women's and men's restrooms. Although the original gallery was free and open to the public, the second is free with admission to the theater or with a pass requested from the museum. Exhibitions titled "Bright Colors / Dark Emotions" and "Know What You Like / Paint How You Feel" have been held in the academic gallery at
Montserrat College of Art
Montserrat College of Art is a private, non-profit art college located in Beverly within Essex County of Massachusetts. The school is accredited by both the New England Commission of Higher Education and the National Association of Schools of A ...
in
Beverly, Massachusetts. One of MOBA's goals is "to take bad art on the road", according to Sacco.
[Gray-Blanc, Elena.]
The Good, the Bad... and the Very, Very Ugly — The Museum of Bad Art: A Worthwhile Stop on the World Weird Web
. '' Santa Barbara Independent'', September 20, 2008 Pieces from MOBA's collection have been on display in museums in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
,
Ottawa,
Taipei
Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...
, and
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
.
[Goldberg, Carey]
"Arts In America: Art So Bad a Museum in Boston Relishes It"
''The New York Times'', October 14, 1998. E2
In February 2009, MOBA announced a fundraiser to assist the
Rose Art Museum
The Rose Art Museum, founded in 1961, is a part of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, US. Named after benefactors Edward and Bertha Rose, it offers temporary exhibitions, and it displays and houses works of art from the permanent col ...
at
Brandeis University
, mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts"
, established =
, type = Private research university
, accreditation = NECHE
, president = Ronald D. Liebowitz
, ...
, which was seriously considering whether to sell masterpieces because of the
global financial crisis of 2008–2009
Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003
* ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007
* ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989
* ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015
* Bruno ...
, made worse for the university by some of its donors losing money in
Bernard Madoff's investment scheme. Current MOBA curator and
balloon artist/musician Michael Frank placed ''Studies in Digestion''—a four-panel piece showing four renditions of the human digestive tract in various media by artist Deborah Grumet—on
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
for a buy-it-now price of $10,000; the first bid was $24.99.
It eventually sold for $152.53 and the meager proceeds went to the Rose Art Museum, while both museums gained publicity.
In 2010, the museum opened a third location in the offices of the Brookline Interactive Group.
In December 2012, the branch at the Dedham Community Theater closed to convert the space into a screening room. Another branch later opened at the New England Wildlife Center in
South Weymouth. The Somerville location was closed in 2019 when theater owners sought to renovate the basement space it occupied.
All locations closed after the breakout of the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
in 2020.
[ The museum reopened at the Dorchester Brewing Company's tap room in Boston in September 2022.][
]
Thefts
The loss of two MOBA works to theft has drawn media attention and enhanced the museum's stature. In 1996, the painting ''Eileen'', by R. Angelo Le, vanished from MOBA. ''Eileen'' was acquired from the trash by Wilson, and features a rip in the canvas where someone slashed it with a knife even before the museum acquired it, "adding an additional element of drama to an already powerful work", according to MOBA.
The museum offered a reward of $6.50 for the return of ''Eileen'', and although MOBA donors later increased that reward to $36.73, the work remained unrecovered for many years. The Boston Police listed the crime as "larceny, other", and Sacco was reported saying she was unable to establish a link between the disappearance of ''Eileen'' and a notorious heist at Boston's famed Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was found ...
that occurred in 1990. In 2006, 10 years after ''Eileen'' was stolen, MOBA was contacted by the purported thief demanding a $5,000 ransom for the painting; no ransom was paid, but it was returned anyway.
Prompted by the theft of ''Eileen'', MOBA staff installed a fake video camera over a sign at their Dedham branch reading (in Comic Sans): "Warning. This gallery is protected by a fake security camera".[Swoger, Kate. "Art Only a Mother Could Love: No Picture is Too Imperfect for Massachusetts Museum". '' The Gazette'', Montreal, Quebec, February 13, 2000. H6] Despite this deterrent, in 2004 Rebecca Harris' ''Self Portrait as a Drainpipe'' was removed from the wall and replaced with a ransom note demanding $10, although the thief neglected to include any contact information. Soon after its disappearance the painting was returned, with a $10 donation.[Michael Frank]
"Art Theft Hits Home in Dedham"
letter to the editor, ''The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', February 11, 2006. 10 Curator Michael Frank speculates that the thief had difficulty fencing
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, ...
the portrait because "reputable institutions refuse to negotiate with criminals."
Collection standards
Although the museum's motto is "Art too bad to be ignored", MOBA holds rigorous standards as to what they will accept. According to Marie Jackson, "Nine out of ten pieces don't get in because they're not bad enough. What an artist considers to be bad doesn't always meet our low standards." As stated in the introduction to ''The Museum of Bad Art: Masterworks'', the primary attribute of an ''objet d'art
In art history, the French term Objet d’art describes an ornamental work of art, and the term Objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish th ...
'' to be acquired by MOBA is that it must have been seriously attempted by someone making an artistic statement. A lack of artistic skill is not essential for a work to be included; a prospective painting or sculpture for the collection ideally should " esultin a compelling image", or as honorary curator Ollie Hallowell stated, the art must have an "Oh my God" quality.
An important criterion for inclusion is that a painting or sculpture must not be boring. Michael Frank says they are not interested in commercial works like ''Dogs Playing Poker
''Dogs Playing Poker'', by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, refers collectively to an 1894 painting, a 1903 series of sixteen oil paintings commissioned by Brown & Bigelow to advertise cigars, and a 1910 painting. All eighteen paintings in the overa ...
'': "We collect things made in earnest, where people attempted to make art and something went wrong, either in the execution or in the original premise." Montserrat College of Art used MOBA's exhibition as a demonstration to its students that "sincerity is still important, and pureness of intent is valid".
MOBA accepts unsolicited works if they meet its standards. Frequently, curators consider works by artists who display an intensity or emotion in the art that they are unable to reconcile with their level of skill. The museum dedicated a show to "relentless creativity" in an exhibition titled "I Just Can't Stop" that was covered by local news and CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
. Other artists are clearly technically proficient, but attempted an experiment that did not end well. Michael Frank has compared some of the works at MOBA with outsider art
Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrate ...
or art brut; some MOBA artists' works are also included in other galleries' outsider collections. Dean Nimmer, a professor at the Massachusetts College of Art
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation’s oldest art schools, the only publicly funded independent art school ...
(also holding the title of MOBA's Executive Director of Good Taste), noted the parallels between the Museum of Bad Art's standards and those of other institutions: "They take the model of a museum of fine arts and apply the same kind of criteria to acceptance for bad work ... heir rulesare very similar to a gallery or museum that says 'Well, our area is really installation art or realist paintings or neo-post-modern abstractions.
MOBA does not collect art created by children, or art traditionally perceived as lesser in quality, such as black velvet paintings, paint-by-numbers, kitsch
Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste.
The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation wi ...
, or factory-produced art—including works specifically created for tourists. Curators are also not interested in crafts such as latch hook rug kits. MOBA curators suggest that more appropriate venues for such works would be the "Museum of Questionable Taste, The International Schlock Collection, or the National Treasury of Dubious Home Decoration".
The Museum of Bad Art has been accused of being anti-art, or taking works that were sincerely rendered and mocking them. However, Scott Wilson insists that a work of art accepted into MOBA is a celebration of the artist's enthusiasm. Marie Jackson reiterated this thought, saying "I think it's a great encouragement to people... who want to create ndare held back by fear, and when they see these pieces, they realize there's nothing to be afraid of—just go for it."[Caro, Mark, "Not a Pretty Picture—Boston-Area Museum a Monument to the Absolute Worst in Art". '']Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
'', May 20, 1997. 1 Louise Reilly Sacco agreed, stating, "If we're making fun of something, it's the art community, not the artists. But this is a real museum. It's 10 years. It's 6,000 people on a mailing list. It's recognition all over the world."[Cobb, Nathan]
"In Dedham, This Museum is Exhibiting 'Bad" Taste"
''The Boston Globe'', February 28, 2004. C1 Curators insist that artists whose works are selected by MOBA enjoy the attention and that it is a win-win; the museum gains another work of art, and the artist receives exposure in a museum. A 1997 article in ''The Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' stated that none of the 10 to 15 artists who had stepped forward to acknowledge their work in MOBA had been upset.
Many of the works in MOBA are donated, often by the artists themselves. Others come from yard sales or thrift stores; the Trash Collectors Union in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
has donated works rescued from imminent demise. Occasionally a painting may be purchased; at one time MOBA's policy was not to spend more than $6.50 on any piece. More recently, twice and even three times that amount has been paid for an exceptional work. Those pieces not retained by the museum are included in a "Rejection Collection" that may be sold at auction. In the past, some proceeds went to the Salvation Army for providing so many of MOBA's pieces; the museum itself usually benefits from most auctions.
Collection highlights
Each painting or sculpture MOBA exhibits is accompanied by a brief description of the medium, size, name of the artist, as well as how the piece was acquired, and an analysis of the work's possible intention or symbolism. ''Museums Journal
''Museums Journal'' is an online resource and monthly print magazine published by the Museums Association. ''Museums Journal'' is a leading source of news and information for museums, galleries, heritage sites and historic houses. Simon Stephens is ...
'' noted that the discussion accompanying each work would most likely have most visitors reduced "to hysterics". The captions—described as "distinctly tongue-in-cheek commentaries" by David Mutch of the ''Christian Science Monitor
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρισ ...
''[—were primarily written by Marie Jackson, until the "dissolution of the MOBA interpretative staff"; the task was then taken over by Michael Frank and Louise Reilly Sacco.][Frank and Sacco, xiv]
''Lucy in the Field with Flowers''
Many of MOBA's works generate extensive discourse from visitors. ''Lucy in the Field with Flowers'' (oil on canvas by Unknown; acquired from trash in Boston) remains a favorite with the news media and patrons. As the first work acquired by the museum, ''Lucy'' is "a painting so powerful it commands its own preservation for posterity", setting a standard by which all future acquisitions would be compared, and causing MOBA's founders to question if Scott Wilson found ''Lucy'' or she found him.
Kate Swoger of ''The Montreal Gazette
The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...
'' called ''Lucy'' a "gorgeous mistake", describing her thus: "an elderly woman dancing in a lush spring field, sagging breasts flopping willy-nilly, as she inexplicably seems to hold a red chair to her behind with one hand and a clutch of daisies in the other". Author Cash Peters, using less florid language, summarized it as "the old woman with an armchair glued to her ass".
MOBA's statement about ''Lucy'' reads: "The motion, the chair, the sway of her breast, the subtle hues of the sky, the expression on her face—every detail combines to create this transcendent and compelling portrait, every detail cries out 'masterpiece'."[Portraiture #1 Lucy In the Field With Flowers](_blank)
. Museum of Bad Art, 2009. Retrieved on March 4, 2009. ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' recounted comments left by a museum visitor regarding the "endless layers of mysteries" the image offers: "What is Norman Mailer's head doing on an innocent grandma's body, and are those crows or F-16s skimming the hills?"["So Bad It's Good: The Arts Online".](_blank)
''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'', March 25, 2006. 15
''Lucy'' granddaughter, a Boston-area nurse named Susan Lawlor, became a fan of MOBA after seeing the portrait in a newspaper. She recognized it as her grandmother, Anna Lally Keane (c. 1890–1968); upon seeing the picture, Lawlor snorted Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlant ...
from her nose in astonishment. The painting was commissioned by her mother, and it hung in her aunt's house for many years, despite the trepidation family members felt at seeing the final composition. Says Lawlor: "The face is hauntingly hers, but everything else is so horribly wrong. It looks like she only has one breast. I'm not sure what happened to her arms and legs, and I don't know where all the flowers and yellow sky came from."
''Sunday on the Pot with George''
''Sunday on the Pot with George'' (acrylic on canvas by John Gedraitis; donated by Jim Schulman) has been deemed "iconic" by Bella English of ''The Boston Globe'', who assures the work is "100 percent guaranteed to make you burst out laughing". Wilson has pointed to ''George'' as an example of a technically well-executed piece of art using a subject not usually seen rendered in paint.
Many admirers of the first work donated to MOBA are hypnotized by the image of a portly man wearing "Y-front" underwear while sitting on a chamber pot, in pointillist
Pointillism (, ) is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image.
Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term "Pointillism" wa ...
impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
similar to the style of Georges Seurat
Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough su ...
. One critic speculates the pointillist style in ''George'' may have been acquired "from watching too much TV". The title refers to the Stephen Sondheim musical '' Sunday in the Park with George'', which contains a dramatic recreation of Seurat's painting ''A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
''A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'' (french: Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte) was painted from 1884 to 1886 and is Georges Seurat's most famous work. A leading example of pointillist technique, executed ...
''. Author Amy Levin suggests that ''George'' is a pastiche of Seurat's painting.[Levin, 198] The subject of this painting has been "tentatively identified" by the '' Annals of Improbable Research''—the creators of the Ig Nobel
The Ig Nobel Prize ( ) is a satiric prize awarded annually since 1991 to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. Its aim is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." The name o ...
award—as John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is an American lawyer, lobbyist and former politician who served as the 79th U.S. Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration from 2001 to 2005. A former U.S. Senator from Missouri and the 50th ...
, former United States Attorney General
The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...
.
A visitor was so moved by ''George'' he felt compelled to express his gratitude for its display in the Dedham Community Theatre basement, writing "Someone had slipped into the bathroom as I took in this painting and began peeing loudly into a toilet. The reverberating sound of urine splashing while viewing ''George'' brought the painting to life, and when the denouement of the flush sounded, I wept." MOBA's accompanying caption introduces questions and observations: "Can the swirling steam melt away the huge weight of George's corporate responsibilities? This pointillist piece is curious for meticulous attention to fine detail, such as the stitching around the edge of the towel, in contrast to the almost careless disregard for the subject's feet."
''Bone-Juggling Dog in Hula Skirt''
In contrast to the pointillist impressionism of ''George'', the museum also features a "fine example of labor-intensive pointlessism", according to MOBA staff. Mari Newman's ''Bone-Juggling Dog in Hula Skirt'' (tempera and acrylic paint on canvas; donated by the artist), inspired this description by MOBA: "We can only wonder what possesses an artist to portray a dog juggling bones while wearing a hula skirt."[Juggling Dog in Hula Skirt]
". Museum of Bad Art, 2009. Retrieved on March 4, 2009. MOBA enjoys the mystery as much as any other aspect of art, however.
Newman, a professional artist from Minneapolis, responded to the curators' cogitation by describing how the image came into being. She bought used canvases while a poor art student, and was unsure how to use a canvas with these dimensions. Inspired by a cartoon of a dachshund, she chose that as a subject, but was unhappy with the effect until she added a hula skirt she had seen in a magazine, and colored dog bones she spied in a pet store. Newman wrote to them, saying "I almost threw it out until I heard of MOBA. After many years of slashing rejected work, now I wish I had saved them all for you."
Motifs and interpretations
Travel writer Cash Peters identifies six characteristics common to many of the museum's artworks. The first is that MOBA artists are unable to render hands or feet, and mask them by extending figures' arms off the canvas, hiding them with long sleeves, or placing shoes on feet in inappropriate scenarios. Second, Peters compared artists Rembrandt and J. M. W. Turner, masters of landscapes, who "could probably paint with their eyes shut" to MOBA artists who apparently did paint with their eyes shut, as skies are often painted in any color but blue, flora
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...
are created without reference to any existing plant organisms, and fauna
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as ''Biota (ecology ...
appear so small in the background it is impossible to discern what kind of animals they are. Third, MOBA artists apply perspective inconsistently, either from one painting to the next, or within a single work. Peters's fourth observation concerns the difficulty MOBA artists seem to have in successfully rendering noses: he writes that a nose will be attempted so many times that the work takes on a third dimension as paint is reapplied over and over. Fifth, bad artists favor "mixed media": if in doubt, they glue feathers, glitter, or hair to their work. Lastly, Peters suggests that artists know their work is bad, but apparently feel the piece may be saved by including a monkey or a poodle in the composition.
Since late 2008, MOBA has been experimenting with allowing the public to title and caption some works. According to the curatorial staff, since some of the works are so puzzling, mere artistic interpretation is not sufficient: they must be "interpretated". The "Guest Interpretator's Collection" is an invitation for MOBA's visitors to include their thoughts on compelling artworks; a contest decides the best analysis and these interpretations are added as each contest ends. A professor at Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...
offered his thoughts: "The location of the museum as much as its collection suggests a commitment to the abject and a belief in the power and force of culture's marginalized effects. I was also reminded that I need to pick up some toilet bowl cleaner on my way home!"
Influence
The Museum of Bad Art has been mentioned in hundreds of international publications, as well as in Boston-area travel guides highlighting offbeat attractions. It has inspired similar collections or events in Australia, Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, and Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
.
Commedia Beauregard, a theatre company whose mission focuses on translation, was inspired by MOBA's mission to create their Master Works series of short play festivals. The company commissioned six playwrights to write short plays based on MOBA artworks. ''Master Works: The MOBA Plays'' was originally performed in January and February 2009 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The plays were based on the MOBA pieces ''Mana Lisa'', ''Invasion of the Office Zombies'', ''My Left Foot'', ''Bone-Juggling Dog in Hula Skirt'', ''Gina's Demons'', and ''Lulli, Fowl and Gravestone''. After moving to Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, the company again produced ''The MOBA Plays'' in March and April 2011, using three of the original plays and translating three new paintings.
Responses to bad art
Museum visitors can sign a guest book, and leave comments. One Canadian visitor wrote: "This collection is disturbing, yet I can't seem to look away...Just like a hideous car accident." Another visitor warns: "Her nipples follow you around the room. Creepy!"
Response to MOBA's opening and continued success is, for some, evocative of the way art is treated in society. MOBA works have been described as "unintentionally hilarious", similar to the atrocious films of Ed Wood
Edward Davis Wood Jr. (October 10, 1924 – December 10, 1978) was an American filmmaker,
actor, and pulp novel author.
In the 1950s, Wood directed several low-budget science fiction, crime and horror films that later became cult cla ...
. Visitors—and even MOBA staff—often laugh out loud at displays. In ''Gullible's Travels'', Cash Peters contrasted this behavior with what is expected of patrons at galleries such as Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...
's Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fe ...
; though viewers might find the art at the Getty equally hilarious, were they to show it they would almost certainly be thrown out.
In 2006, Louise Reilly Sacco participated in a panel discussion with authorities on art and architecture about standards of beauty and ugliness in art, published in ''Architecture Boston''. She remarked that teachers bring high school art students to MOBA, then to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). Sacco observes, "Somehow MOBA frees kids to laugh and point, to have their own opinions and argue about things. Then they take the experience to the MFA, where they might otherwise feel intimidated... Maybe the ugly ... frees us." Sacco believes that extreme ugliness is more striking than extreme beauty, and it forces people to think more deeply about what is wrong or misplaced. She connects this rigid judgment of what does not conform to beauty with intolerance for physical imperfections in people, noting that such rigidity sometimes causes parents to "fix" the perceived flaws in their children's faces to keep them from suffering later.
Jason Kaufman, a Harvard professor who teaches the sociology of culture, wrote that MOBA is part of a social trend he calls "annoyism", where mass media venues promote performances and artists who mix the deliberately bad with the clever. The Museum of Bad Art happens to embody this trend, and further illustrates its central aim to mock the judgment system by which people identify what is bad from what is not. For Kaufman, "The beauty of MOBA—though beauty is surely the wrong word—is the way it undermines aesthetic criteria from numerous angles." Amy Levin, describing how American history and culture have been shaped by small local museums, suggests that MOBA is a parody of art itself, and that MOBA's commentary, newsletter, website, and publications mock museums as authorities on what is good art. The director of the Ellipse Arts Center, a gallery in Arlington, Virginia
Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county ...
, that hosted a traveling exhibition of MOBA works, was astonished to see people's exuberant laughter because no one visiting the Ellipse had ever responded to art this way. She observed, "If I didn't have a sign on the door, people might not think it's so bad. Who's to say what's bad and what's good?"[Lewis, Nicole]
"For Badness' Sake"
''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', October 8, 1998. D5
Deborah Solomon, in ''The New York Times Magazine
''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...
'', asserted that MOBA's success reflects a trend in modern art among artists and audiences. The arrival of abstraction and modern art in the early 20th century made art appreciation more esoteric and less accessible for the general community, showing that "the American public ... think of museums as intimidating places ruled by a cadre of experts whose taste and rituals eem
The Eem (; formerly the Amer) is a river in the central Netherlands with a length of approximately .
The river is fed by the Vallei Canal and a number of Veluwe creeks, the most important of which are the Heiligenberger Beek, the Barneveldse Beek ...
as mysterious as those of Byzantine priests." Bad art is in vogue, as a movement that rejects the anti-sentimentalism that marked earlier disdain for artists such as Norman Rockwell
Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of Culture of the United States, the country's culture. Roc ...
or Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau (; 6 April 1826 – 18 April 1898) was a French artist and an important figure in the Symbolist movement. Jean Cassou called him "the Symbolist painter par excellence".Cassou, Jean. 1979. ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Symbolism.' ...
, according to Solomon. Garen Daly, a MOBA fan on several Boston-area art councils, stated in 1995, "I go to a lot of openings, and sometimes they're pretty damn stuffy."[Hirsch, James "Gosh, That's Awful! It Would Look Great Hanging in a Museum—Painting Failures Are Displayed on Some Walls in Boston Dedication to 'Bad Art'." '']The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', July 12, 1995. A1 Not only does the Museum of Bad Art offer different fare for the eyes, but instead of the wine and cheese that is provided for most museum and art gallery visitors, a MOBA show provides its patrons with Kool-Aid
Kool-Aid is an American brand of flavored drink mix owned by Kraft Heinz based in Chicago, Illinois. The powder form was created by Edwin Perkins in 1927 based upon a liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack.
History
Kool-Aid was invented by ...
, Fluffernutter
A fluffernutter (also called a "peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich", "peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich", or "peanut butter and marshmallow stuff sandwich") is a sandwich made with peanut butter and marshmallow creme usually ser ...
s and cheese puffs
Cheese puffs, cheese curls, cheese balls, cheese ball puffs, cheesy puffs, or corn curls are a puffed corn snack, coated with a mixture of cheese or cheese-flavored powders. They are manufactured by extruding heated corn dough through a die th ...
.
Use in academic research
The Museum of Bad Art has been used in academic studies as a standard of reference for the spectacularly awful. In one such study, published in ''Perspectives on Psychological Science
''Perspectives on Psychological Science'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal of psychology. It is published by SAGE Publications on behalf of the Association for Psychological Science. The journal was established in 2006 and the editor-i ...
'', researchers tested the consistency of responses between people asked to make "gut" judgments versus those who gave conscious well-reasoned responses regarding the quality of various pieces of art. The researchers showed respondents images from MOBA and New York's Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
(MoMA) and asked them to rate each painting on a scale with two ends representing "Very Attractive" and "Very Unattractive". The study found that those who reasoned in conscious thought were neither more accurate nor as consistent in their ratings. Study participants identified and rated MoMA art higher quality, but those who used conscious reasoning did not find MoMA art more attractive than those who rated with "gut" judgments. Furthermore, the deliberators did not find MOBA art as unattractive as those with quicker response times. The study concluded that people who make quick judgments do so more consistently, with no significant change to accuracy.
In another study that appeared in the ''British Journal of Psychology
The ''British Journal of Psychology'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed psychology journal. It was established in 1904 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the British Psychological Society. The editor-in-chief is Stefan R. Schweinberger ( ...
'', researchers tested how respondents considered balance in artwork composition of differing qualities. Fifteen pairs of works from ArtCyclopedia
Artcyclopedia is an online database of museum-quality fine art founded by Canadian John Malyon.
Information
The Artcyclopedia only deals with art that can be viewed online, and indexes 2,300 art sites (from museums and galleries), with links to a ...
by artists such as Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...
, Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
, and Georges-Pierre Seurat
Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough su ...
, and fifteen from MOBA by artists including Doug Caderette, Unknown, and D. Alix were shown to participants; in each, an item in the painting was shifted vertically or horizontally, and respondents were asked to identify the original. The researchers hypothesized that respondents would identify balance and composition more easily in the traditional masterworks, and that study participants would find a greater change of quality when items were shifted in traditional masterworks than they would in MOBA pieces. However, the study concluded that balance alone did not define art of higher quality for the participants, and that respondents were more likely to see that original art was more balanced than the altered version, not necessarily that the traditional art was significantly better composed and balanced than MOBA works.
See also
* Museum of Particularly Bad Art
Notes
References
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External links
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Dedham Community Theatre
Somerville Theater
Bad Taste Meets Bad Art
coverage of MOBA from Minnesota Public Radio
Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), is a public radio network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, YourClassical MPR and The Current, MPR operates a 46-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest.
MPR ha ...
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