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.
I agree with MOBA’s position but I also think taking it out on these no-name artists misses the target. It is misdirected snobbery.
Some may dislike drawing distinctions between the art of low and high talent artists because it seems mean-spirited towards low talent artists. In other words, they dislike talent-seeking snobs.
Others may dislike it for the opposite reason: that there are many examples of famous artists who don’t display discernible talent. You might say these people dislike talent-eschewing snobs. Paging through an art history textbook yields tons of examples.
Compare Henri Matisse’s Music from 1910. If you told most people a 5th grader painted that, they wouldn’t have been surprised.
Ditto with Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus, 1920. Or even Rodchenko’s single-color paintings. And Arshille Gorky seems to have painted using a paintbrush tied to his forehead.
So maybe that’s the answer. This MOBA should be filled with famous artists, not no-name amateurs. There seems to be no shortage of them. And it’s not like the only alternative to Jackson Pollock is dogs playing poker. There are many obviously talented artists who got far less recognition because talent eschewing snobs pushed out the talent seeking ones.
i find it endearing. a celebration of human striving and failing. it reminds me of the quote from the incredible fiasco episode of This American Life:
> Jack Hitt: And what you have to understand is that everybody in this sort of community understood that they were-- there was certainly a sort of air of everyone sort of reaching beyond their own grasp. Every actor was sort of in a role that was just a little too big for them. Every aspect of the set and the crew-- and rumors had sort of cooked around. There was this huge crew. There were lots of things being painted.
> Ira Glass: See, but this, in fact, is one of the criteria for greatness, is that everyone is just about to reach just beyond their grasp, because that is when greatness can occur.
> Jack Hitt: That's right. That's right. And maybe greatness could have occurred.
To me it looks like pieces are chosen that show a contrast of good and bad - they have amateurish or weird proportions and colors, but generally they have good or at least interesting composition. I couldn't really say how much is intentional vs accidental, for a lot of them.
It didn't feel mean sprited when I went. Many of the pieces were actually good in their own way. Sure, some were simply technically lacking, but those weren't what viewers found interesting. The human fetus made of chicken bones is what I remember.
Yeah, it seems unkind. What is the purpose here? To teach about art, using art that maybe was someone's learning attempt seems like a huge mistake (and is likely to scare away students). If you aren't teaching, why talk about bad art at all?
I think you're missing the point, or at least the point I took away from it.
Much of the art in the collections is genuinely interesting and enjoyable, even if it is technically "bad", in the sense that it's a poor attempt at a certain type of 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.
Yes. Art exactly like what's shown in this museum is commonplace in serious art galleries or exhibits, and there is not really anything anyone can say or do, except just walk past it or use it as a palette cleanser.
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
yeah I also have a gallery of 'bad art', in my home entryway. I have about 25 pieces I've collected from the side of the road when students move out. Mostly half-finished canvases, portraits of beer cans.
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?
Yup, they moved back when Somerville Theater did the most recent renovations I think. I kind of miss going to the bathroom down there and seeing the strange art while wandering.
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?
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?
In the landscapes section there are some that look as if the author was Dalí.
Now, Dalí is divisive and many hate his work. But when you add Dalí-like art to your "bad art" gallery you're making a bold & controversial statement...
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").
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 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.
I do feel bad for the amateurs. I went to art school where we received and administered constant daily critique where frankness matters. Genuinely mean spirited comments obviously still sucked, but we couldn't hesitate to say things like "that nose reads more like a foot and that flesh kind of makes them look dead, so unless you were going for that, maybe you could consider [etc]" because class was only 4 hours long, 15 people needed crit, we still had another huge drawing to complete, and after you've been staring at a piece for hours or days, you can't even see it objectively anymore, so you're thankful for the reality check. It was technical stuff-- not commenting on people's ideas or what they were trying to express. That experience moves "the line" we instinctively don't cross as social creatures, and something we might say with the best intentions without reading the room could entirely put someone off of learning art, forever. Even if it seems constructive you're saying it, if it's received as mean spirited and is out-of-step with the tone of the exchange, then the intent doesn't matter much.
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.
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.
That's my impression as well. Very few of the pieces look like trolling. They look more like when an enthusiastic relative tells you they've started art classes and they show you what they've done so far...
You know, that aunt that has started doing watercolors and asks for your honest opinion.
I was just thinking that when an animal paints, we sometimes see at least a little something worth seeing in there. They have no scholarly craft but still there is something that came out of them. It seems that the same should also be true for humans.
I was tempted to create a top-level post suggesting that they just call themselves "Museum" since "Of Bad Art" is redundant, but I figured the joke would get lost and I'd just get down-voted into oblivion.
I'm fairly creative, I can draw (at one time in my life I seriously wanted to be a comic book illustrator) and I'm a musician. I appreciate that art is subjective, often difficult to do well and that technical skill is not the only factor that matters.
But when I looked at their "collections" page my first thought was "How does this distinguish itself from the bulk of what goes on display in modern fine art exhibits?"
The serious question being posed is: "What makes this particular collection 'bad' but something like 'Voices of Fire' is so 'good' that it was worth charging the Canadian tax payers $1.8 million dollars in 1980s money to acquire for the National Gallery of Canada?
My thoughts exactly! What makes a bad art piece anyway? While they might not have yet mastered the brush or the canvas, these artists are obviously passionate all the same, and isn't that what matters? Real bad art is soulless and as such would offer no value, be it entertainment or contemplative, when placed in a gallery. That is a true Mueseum Of Bad Art, and I suppose the curators know this. I thought some of these pieces were quite incredible, actually.
I guess some genres attract worse artists than others. Most in the "Oozing My Religion" and "In The Nood" categories are truly atrocious, while some from "MOBA Zoo" are actually not that bad (including my favourite - more because of the retroactively added title than because of the work itself - "You're a Mule, Dear")...
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.
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.
Yeah, modern art is almost universally bad. I suspect that it is because artists are absolutely soaked in art from all over history. They study it, they live and breathe it, and by this point they are bored of it. So they try to make something different and unlike the art of old, but have lost sight of the fact that normal people aren't jaded and bored of old art like they are. So they wind up making stuff which can only possibly appeal to others who are just as soaked in art (and bored of the old stuff) as they are. It basically turns art into this giant circle jerk of artists making stuff to impress each other, having lost touch with their audience.
I've noticed the same thing with other fields as well, not just art. Cooking is this way, for example. The food that fancy chefs at fancy restaurants make is so ridiculous that it feels like a joke sometimes. And as far as I can tell, it's the same thing. Those chefs are bored of normal food, are trying super hard to make something creative that has never been done before, and have lost sight of the fact that it's just not going to appeal to people who aren't as bored with food as they are. Maybe it's the inevitable result of being steeped in a craft and spending all your time on it, IDK.
It's like the label is guiding you about how you should think about the piece.
Many of these, had they been in a modern art gallery and labeled something like "man despairing at the enormity of the cosmos" would have gone unnoticed or even praised.
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.
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.
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.
> "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.“
rectang|1 year ago
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.
janalsncm|1 year ago
Some may dislike drawing distinctions between the art of low and high talent artists because it seems mean-spirited towards low talent artists. In other words, they dislike talent-seeking snobs.
Others may dislike it for the opposite reason: that there are many examples of famous artists who don’t display discernible talent. You might say these people dislike talent-eschewing snobs. Paging through an art history textbook yields tons of examples.
Compare Henri Matisse’s Music from 1910. If you told most people a 5th grader painted that, they wouldn’t have been surprised.
Ditto with Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus, 1920. Or even Rodchenko’s single-color paintings. And Arshille Gorky seems to have painted using a paintbrush tied to his forehead.
So maybe that’s the answer. This MOBA should be filled with famous artists, not no-name amateurs. There seems to be no shortage of them. And it’s not like the only alternative to Jackson Pollock is dogs playing poker. There are many obviously talented artists who got far less recognition because talent eschewing snobs pushed out the talent seeking ones.
ikesau|1 year ago
> Jack Hitt: And what you have to understand is that everybody in this sort of community understood that they were-- there was certainly a sort of air of everyone sort of reaching beyond their own grasp. Every actor was sort of in a role that was just a little too big for them. Every aspect of the set and the crew-- and rumors had sort of cooked around. There was this huge crew. There were lots of things being painted.
> Ira Glass: See, but this, in fact, is one of the criteria for greatness, is that everyone is just about to reach just beyond their grasp, because that is when greatness can occur.
> Jack Hitt: That's right. That's right. And maybe greatness could have occurred.
awfulneutral|1 year ago
willis936|1 year ago
eth0up|1 year ago
Edit: Are we missing something?
adamc|1 year ago
CivBase|1 year ago
codexb|1 year ago
Much of the art in the collections is genuinely interesting and enjoyable, even if it is technically "bad", in the sense that it's a poor attempt at a certain type of art.
_spduchamp|1 year ago
nerdponx|1 year ago
smsm42|1 year ago
gcau|1 year ago
SoftTalker|1 year ago
QuadmasterXLII|1 year ago
chefandy|1 year ago
dbalatero|1 year ago
weard_beard|1 year ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym
sameoldtune|1 year ago
broabprobe|1 year ago
the_af|1 year ago
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?
davrosthedalek|1 year ago
mtlguitarist|1 year ago
caboteria|1 year ago
zactato|1 year ago
pvg|1 year ago
dang|1 year ago
Museum of Bad Art - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26031441 - Feb 2021 (57 comments)
OCASMv2|1 year ago
southernplaces7|1 year ago
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?
purkka|1 year ago
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Bad_Art#Collection_h...
celeritascelery|1 year ago
nerdponx|1 year ago
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?
the_af|1 year ago
Now, Dalí is divisive and many hate his work. But when you add Dalí-like art to your "bad art" gallery you're making a bold & controversial statement...
bitwize|1 year ago
zxexz|1 year ago
BenFranklin100|1 year ago
Tanoc|1 year ago
benrutter|1 year ago
- 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.
chefandy|1 year ago
bwanab|1 year ago
eadmund|1 year ago
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.
the_af|1 year ago
You know, that aunt that has started doing watercolors and asks for your honest opinion.
Brian_K_White|1 year ago
dahart|1 year ago
Yawrehto|1 year ago
gspencley|1 year ago
I'm fairly creative, I can draw (at one time in my life I seriously wanted to be a comic book illustrator) and I'm a musician. I appreciate that art is subjective, often difficult to do well and that technical skill is not the only factor that matters.
But when I looked at their "collections" page my first thought was "How does this distinguish itself from the bulk of what goes on display in modern fine art exhibits?"
The serious question being posed is: "What makes this particular collection 'bad' but something like 'Voices of Fire' is so 'good' that it was worth charging the Canadian tax payers $1.8 million dollars in 1980s money to acquire for the National Gallery of Canada?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire
ferguu_|1 year ago
forinti|1 year ago
rob74|1 year ago
MarkusWandel|1 year ago
calebm|1 year ago
bigstrat2003|1 year ago
I've noticed the same thing with other fields as well, not just art. Cooking is this way, for example. The food that fancy chefs at fancy restaurants make is so ridiculous that it feels like a joke sometimes. And as far as I can tell, it's the same thing. Those chefs are bored of normal food, are trying super hard to make something creative that has never been done before, and have lost sight of the fact that it's just not going to appeal to people who aren't as bored with food as they are. Maybe it's the inevitable result of being steeped in a craft and spending all your time on it, IDK.
d--b|1 year ago
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.
the_af|1 year ago
Many of these, had they been in a modern art gallery and labeled something like "man despairing at the enormity of the cosmos" would have gone unnoticed or even praised.
_joel|1 year ago
geophile|1 year ago
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.
t43562|1 year ago
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.
cratermoon|1 year ago
thordenmark|1 year ago
There are so many spectacularly bad examples useful for any topic I'm teaching.
willis936|1 year ago
bhickey|1 year ago
jihadjihad|1 year ago
> 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.
0: https://museumofbadart.org/sports/
vundercind|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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hermitcrab|1 year ago
asdfasvea|1 year ago
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.
nathan_compton|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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gwbas1c|1 year ago
Please don't break the web.
Zealotux|1 year ago
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otteromkram|1 year ago
Cold blooded.
(ref - https://museumofbadart.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PAULIN...
the_af|1 year ago
rectang|1 year ago
https://museumofbadart.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PAULIN...
... which is the fourth picture in on this page:
https://museumofbadart.org/in-the-nood/