Bad
art.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 has two
branches, one in Dedham, Massachusetts, and the other in
nearby Somerville. Its permanent collection includes 500
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 required its own
viewing space. The museum 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.
MOBA has been mentioned
in dozens of off-the-beaten-path guides to Boston,
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 noted
that the attention the Museum of Bad Art receives is
part of a wider trend of museums displaying "the best
bad art". The museum has been criticized for being
anti-art, 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."
Lucy in the Field with Flowers (in original frame),
the first of MOBA's collection, which inspired a museum
"dedicated to the collection, preservation, and
exhibition of really awful artwork"
