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Museum of Bad Art

museumofbadart.org

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Re: Museum of Bad Art

#121

Post by BenFranklin100 »

eth0up wrote: post #93
rectang wrote: post #90

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…

My sentiments are very similar, and I'm glad to read someone else articulating it here. Edit: Are we missing something?

Yes. A sense of humor.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#123

Post by chefandy »

benrutter wrote: post #83

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.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#124

Post by rectang »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #121
eth0up wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sentiments are very similar, and I'm glad to read someone else articulating it here. Edit: Are we missing something?

Yes. A sense of humor.

This entire HN page is a performance piece. There is only one commenter who is not in on it.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#125

Post by squidsoup »

duderific wrote: post #113
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Same phenomenon in modern classical music, and what is known as "free jazz". Much of it is unlistenable for average people, or even those who enjoy "classic" classical or jazz music. Taking the example of free jazz, the artists are trying to free themselves from what they see as restraints on expression. However, the human mind and heart are themselves governed by pattern and organization, which is why most music too…

No good artist cares about their audience.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#126

Post by janalsncm »

ikesau wrote: post #98
rectang wrote: post #90

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…

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…

> And maybe greatness could have occurred.

I’m going to steal this line. I can only imagine this being read in a soft NPR voice. This kind of subtle jab, so polite you don’t even notice it unless you’re paying attention, is so perfectly characteristic.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#129

Post by squidsoup »

PrismCrystal wrote: post #91
gspencley wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 skil…

With a work of a size like "Voices of Fire", one has to consider the possibility that it hits differently in real life versus seeing a reproduction in a book or on the internet. For example, some people who were sceptical about the value of Mark Rothko’s paintings (which are fairly comparable in style) were won over once they saw the works in person. Or consider how Arvo Pärt, a composer who writes music in a style t…

Unless you've sat in the Rothko chapel or the Rothko room at the Tate, I don't think you can appreciate the profound solemnity of these things. You just can't experience these things through a photograph.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#130

Post by janalsncm »

rectang wrote: post #90

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…

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.

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