Museum of Bad Art
I went to the bad art museum in iceland and it was quite something to see in person. As you turn each corner, new dimensions of weird and shock emerge. Some was just kind of silly, and some was accidentally horrifying in an uncanny valley sort of way. Some were mental illness on display. I left with some very mixed feelings.. the ha-ha with the oh-no, and the oh-my! Definitely glad to have seen it. Online photos do not do the awfulness justice.
To be honest, if it weren't labeled "bad art" and were put aside of other modern art, without any labeling or commentary, or even better with standard commentary about "the artists boldly defying the established conventions to express the feelings deeply in their soul" and so on - I would not be able to say which is which and which comes from some official "best of" collection and which from a mock "bad art" collection.
This philosophy matches up with how I curate my music collection, which has brought me a great deal of joy even if it means no one will give me the aux cable at parties
The only one? Cafe Racer in Seattle had an excellent collection in their OBAMA room (Official Bad Art Museum of Art) :P
Some of these look similar to stuff I've seen in galleries purporting to display good modern art.
There's an asymmetry going on here... I think making bad art at this level is very easy. Most of it looks like things created by children (or young people) who are not very talented or still lack direction and practice. Perspective errors, hiding body parts that are difficult to draw for novices, uninteresting composition, garish colors... (making things more confusing: each of these "flaws" can be done on purpose by a decent artist, to make a statement).
I wonder what qualifies for inclusion in MOBA. Creating good art is difficult, but creating bad art is trivial.
Or maybe it's bad art that is noteworthy for external reasons, like Ecce Homo?
Oh, they moved! I think they used to be in Somerville below the Somerville theater.
More discussion/picks from a couple of years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26031441
The bizarre thing about this entire collection of works (some of which are truly awful) is that for many of them, there's almost no difference in quality or style from much of the work I've seen promoted by major art organizations and galleries showcasing both "up and coming" artists and some established figures. I've even noted a certain trend towards increasing promotion of a specifically kitschy style of art by certain galleries, which closely resembles some of the stuff on this site.
So how do we really define bad art if the stuff called bad by one group is nearly identical to the stuff promoted by "high culture" galleries and organizations as being the latest in faashionably interesting art?
Y'know, I would actually buy a few of these pieces. Most of them aren't bad at all, they're just outside of the mainstream. Keys To The City for example, in the Unlikely Landscapes collection is a prime example of outsider art. You have a bunch of key blanks, likely taken from where the artist worked, and they're turned from tools into parts of the painting. Bone Juggling Dog In A Hula Skirt is another one I'd probably get just because it reminds me of those kitschy '90s Good Apple posters in schools featuring the kids with perfect parabola smiles and tiny dot eyes.
I find this indistinguishable from any modern/contemporary art museum.
I flipped through the "unseen forces" section and so far about half of them aren't actually bad. For example Monochrome 006 (supposedly inspired by Schoenberg) would IMO fit right in at MOMA and was actually kind of cool. Likewise, Inside The Egg, Twins In Utero, and Spewing Marshmallows were both really interesting. Some of these are actually goofy doodles, but it's a shame to dismiss everything that isn't a conventional oil painting as "bad". I say this as someone who doesn't really enjoy or appreciate modern art (or modern music like Schoenberg for that matter).
I see the same problem in other sections too. A New Day looks like a child's doodle. But Greenscape and Burning Bush are interesting. They both look like they were painted by big Bob Ross fans. Amateur, sure. But hardly "bad art" to the point of being in a museum of bad art. Or maybe they're much worse in person?
Came across this today. Especially the collection highlights on Wikipedia [0] really made my day.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Bad_Art#Collection_h...
The MOBA was always fun to visit after seeing a movie at Somerville Theatre. Recently I found myself wishing I were back in Somerville, because they had an anniversary showing of Hackers there in September, with special guest Renoly Santiago ("Phantom Phreak").
Oh cool, they have a new location! I missed poking around after shows at the Somerville Theater.
The strange portrait used as the headline image, and "Orange Coloured Sky" used as the header for the bad portrait gallery, "Sunrise, Sunset" in the landscapes (and possibly others) are actually good art, in my opinion. The only thing missing is the signature of a famous artist.
I have to admit that going to the Museum of Bad Art always has had a similar effect on my very poor art eye as going to the Institute of Contemporary Art across town.
I think I like the name more than any of the collections. They seem like one of two categories:
- Art that isn't actually bad
- Art that is bad, because its by amateurs
The first feels disappointing, and the second feels mean. Honestly, making fun of amsteurish monstrosities is a lot less enjoyable than making them yourself.
Consider the possibility that the artists behind these pieces were not trolling, but genuinely trying to express something, or craft something beautiful. Mocking their failures is a little bit liking making fun of a small child’s fingerpainting.
I completely agree that this stuff is ugly, much of it atrociously ugly. But it’s likely the artists knew no better, or at least could do no better. It’s also ugly to mock others — and we do know better, and we can do better.
Honestly, most of them are still better than I could draw.
A lot of contemporary art is bad... surprisingly bad. A lot of it is /intentionally/ ugly. As an outsider just getting into the art world, it is fascinating - some kind of weird social phenomenon is going on. Maybe it's "different at all expenses" or something else. Not sure.
Honestly... It's not that terrible... The comments are really harsh.
I don't understand the need to label it as bad. It's just stupid.
Lots of museums of amateur art exist around the world and don't just shit all over the artists.
Fuck you MOBA.
"Terrible Art in Charity Shops" is quite an amusing facebook group, too.
I love MOBA. The art is quite spectacularly awful. But what really makes the museum so wonderful are the blurbs on display with each piece of art. They are written in the style of Very Serious art museums (the art is "exploring" some issue, or "asking a question"), but tuned to the particular piece of horrendously bad art you are looking at.
They used to be in the basement of the Dedham theater, when I lived nearby. Then they had the decency to move to the basement of the Somerville Theater when I moved to Somerville. But they have moved again, to Dorchester. Fortunately, not too far. I went to the (re)opening in Dorchester, and actually got to meet the couple who started the museum, and got the story of MOBAs birth firsthand.
"What is art anyhow?"
some answers I could think up:
- whatever I like is art
- whatever some people who are "better than me" call art is art
- whatever an artist can sell to a rich person for a high price is art...
I can't make up my mind.
I use the MOBA as a resource for my classes of what not to do (I teach at an art university).
There are so many spectacularly bad examples useful for any topic I'm teaching.
The rise of generative AI will usher in a golden age of bad art.
I went there this past Summer. It isn't advertised externally. Look for the brewery.
The Athlete in the Sports Section [0] is glorious:
> Crayon and pencil on canvas, 40" x 30"
> Rescued from trash in Boston, MA
> The discus thrower's pink mini toga, wing tip shoes, and white socks define athletic sartorial splendor. This is among the largest crayon on canvas pieces one can ever hope to see.
There is far worse in the Tate Modern, in London.
The best general art museums I've ever gone to were 80% crap, 15% meh and 5% good. The average general art museum is 90% crap, 9% meh and 1% ok.
But that's the nature of the beast. You can't have a diverse collection where half the pieces are good to any individual. 1 person's opinion of great art is 99 other people's crap.
There really are very few pieces in the world where 90%+ of people agree they are great pieces of art.
Now this is what I call taste.
If this would have been the most prestigious and highly regarded Art I wouldn´t be able to tell the difference.
What's wrong with the page? I can't select the address to copy & paste it into maps.
Please don't break the web.
We can finally classify art as bad now?
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The Museum should ask if Ubisoft, Bethesda and EA would like to get involved (Digital "Art").
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A.k.a. MOMA?
> "MOBA curators believe this painting, as well as others in the collection, may have been affected by the artists' never having actually seen a naked woman.“
Cold blooded.
(ref - https://museumofbadart.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PAULIN...
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I dislike it. Ostensibly this is taking on art museum snobbery, but many of these works are by amateurs and were literally pulled out the trash. It feels like an embittered teacher making fun of a kid, while the class snickers at the spectacle of public humiliation.
To each of the artists: congratulations for having the courage to trust in your imagination. I hope that others have engaged with your works with greater generosity.
EDIT: There’s a missed opportunity here for a critic to participate in the exhibition by praising the works sincerely. (If museum goers can detect sarcasm then the critique has failed.) That would be more fun and it wouldn’t even be hard since the works have already set expectations low.