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Museum of Bad Art

museumofbadart.org

81–90 of 154 posts

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#81
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As backronyms go, this one is a winner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym

That article has to have some of the worst written language I’ve seen in a wikipedia article in a while. Just bad, unclear, convoluted explanations. Thankfully they provide a lot of examples - they should probably just skip to those and you’d be better off for it.

I don't mind fixing it, but I can't see the problem. Which sentences annoy most?

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#82

Honestly, most of them are still better than I could draw.

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…

I knew a guy who was selling his art online, he was making tongue-in-cheek, technically bad art but it was very deliberate as part of what he was trying to get at, he had a real artistic vision to his work.

His work got picked by MOBA and was made fun of, but they totally missed the point.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#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.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#84
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.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#85
post #36

Honestly, most of them are still better than I could draw.

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 thes…

I think it is quite simple to characterize MOBAs curation process. First, it has to be bad, in an ambition-vastly-exceeds-talent kind of way. Second (per MOBA rules) there is a price limit on each acquisition. It used to be $5, but may have been adjusted for inflation.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#86
post #73

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…

Perhaps a large fraction of art was always bad, but only the best old art is remembered today. Modern art hasn't been culled by time.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know there was a bad art museum there. However I do strongly recommend the penis museum in Reykjavik.

I actually went to the penis museum 5 years ago! It was... maybe not the best thing. It's not exactly clear in a lot of the marketing materials, and even once you arrive, that it's just a single room behind the front desk. It felt a lot more like a road side attraction than anything else. The gift shop in the front was a similar size to the museum in the back. To be fair my expectations of a penis museum weren't THAT…

Everyone wants it to be bigger, but we just have to work with what's there.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#89
post #73

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…

Why do you think the goal of modern art should necessarily be to appeal to as many people as possible - or when you say "universally bad" do you mean to say "perceived as bad to people who aren't immersed in art"? Marvel movies and McDonalds will always exist for normal people.

Re: Museum of Bad Art

#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 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.

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