When you've had your fill of art "masters" such as of Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, perhaps it's time to cross over to a lesser-known place, the dark underbelly of the art world - the world of really bad art.
For each masterpiece created, there are probably thousands of painfully awful works that go unnoticed. What happens to them all? Most of them end up in the garbage, but a select few are enshrined in the Museum of Bad Art.
The Museum of Bad Art is exactly what it sounds like: a museum dedicated to displaying purely bad art. It houses a permanent collection of approximately 250 pieces and displays about 20 works at a time, ranging from sculptures to paintings to unidentifiable papier-mache "things."
The MoBA may sound like the MoMA, but the similarities don't extend very far past the acronym. Located in the basement of the Dedham Community Theater in Dedham, Massachusetts, the entire museum sits in a single room that also serves as the hallway to the men's restroom. Just walking into the museum is an experience: the theater is old and dusty, the stairs to the basement are creaky and the whole town looks like someone forgot about it decades ago.
The art isn't much better. In fact, it's far worse. The piece that inspired the MoBA, "Lucy in the Field with Flowers," sits in its honored place on the door to the men's room. It is a painting of an old woman sitting on a chair in a surreal field of flowers. She is grimacing, the wind blowing her white hair, an eerily yellow sky situated behind her.
The painting begs many questions: Who the hell painted this? Hey, is that my grandma? or just "Why?" There are no answers, but it's a good thing someone had the foresight not to permanently dispose of the work. "Lucy in the Field with Flowers" was clearly meant for bigger and better things.
"Lucy," like many of the works in the MoBA, was acquired from the trash, but paintings like these are far too precious to throw away. Each piece, whether it depicts Michael Jackson or a pink toilet, has a particular quality which makes it more than just plain bad. They are imaginative, strange, perverse, and poorly crafted in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
The MoBA is fun because while the artists took themselves seriously, the curator does not. Captions do not hesitate to mock. One painting, "Mourning a Lost Dog," depicts a woman with a burning crown of roses and a hand over her heart. She stands next to an empty collar floating in the air. "With an owner like this, the dog may be better off," the caption said. Probably true.
The MoBA doesn't just mock its works; it mocks art museums in general. The gift shop, located upstairs at the theater's concession stand, sells everything from bumper stickers to coffee mugs to virtual CDs of the entire MoBA collection. It even sells a tote bag with a portrait on the front, "Sunday on the Pot with George." The painting depicts a man in tighty-whities sitting on the closed lid of a toilet, but the image cuts off suddenly at his ankles. Across the tote bag is the phrase, "Like Renoir never ran out of canvas before he finished the feet."
Bad art is a talent in itself, a gift which should be appreciated as is. It is characterized by blatant and melodramatic symbolism, clashing colors, poorly drawn figures, and ridiculous messages. And that's why it's wonderful.
The MoBA is located way out on the Orange Line, requiring both the T and bus to reach. After all that travel, it's really only one room. But if you're ever in the mood for an offbeat adventure, it's the perfect destination.
Maybe bad art is fun because it makes viewers feel better about themselves. Maybe it's fun because it's just so strange. But in the end, it really doesn't matter. Bad art transcends aesthetic boundaries and is not ashamed to be gloriously hideous.
One guest from Portland, Oregon, wrote in the guestbook, "This museum changed my life." Bad art is that powerful.
