Art Museum In Massachusetts Showcasing Art That Is Too Bad To Ignore
Curators at fine art museums are responsible for collecting art for their exhibits and galleries, studying which pieces fit their criteria. These questions include “What makes good art?” “What makes a piece of artwork good?” The approach is slightly differently at an art museum located in the basement of the Somerville Theater in Somerville, Massachusetts. The curator at the Museum Of Bad Art (MOBA) is on the hunt for bad art.
“We are looking for art that meets the widespread standards of what is bad,” said MOBA's Permanent Acting Interim Executive Director Louise Reilly Sacco. “These paintings wouldn't make it in a traditional museum because they don't meet the traditional standards of what is considered good.”
The artwork at MOBA's three galleries (including the main gallery in Somerville) are all considered “art too bad to be ignored.” According to Sacco, these pieces are interesting and compelling…yet their place is certain. Viewers will do a double take as they walk past each piece. They can't look away.
In 1994, arts and antiques dealer Scott Wilson found a painting leaning against a trash barrel that was “pretty bad.” He was planning to throw it away, said Sacco, but her brother Jerry Reilly said it was “so bad it's good.” Reilly ended up hanging up the painting in his house.
Intrigued by Reilly's fondness for the bad painting, Wilson and other people continued to find other bad paintings at thrift stores that suited Reilly’s tastes. When Reilly moved a year later, he decided to open a museum of bad art in his basement.
“We put up the paintings for this one night event,” said Sacco. “We included interpretations for each of the paintings. By midnight there were about 200 people. People kept calling their friends to tell them...[and] we decided to keep this going ever since.”
In a town full of museums and a thriving fine arts scene, the MOBA stood out like a sore thumb and gained huge publicity. People even mailed paintings to the museum's curators and left artwork on their doorsteps. But the MOBA does not usually accept these contributions. Their curators are already on the prowl for paintings perfect for the galleries.
While there are only 30 pieces of artwork at the Somerville gallery at a time, MOBA has 700 pieces of bad art in their ever-expanding collection. And MOBA loves each and every piece. “If we didn't love these pieces we wouldn't be doing this,” said Sacco. The paintings are not unlikeable. They're just bad. But what makes them bad?
Fine art museums, art history classes and fine art experts are always discussing what makes art good. But what makes a piece bad? Does anyone have the authority to say that a piece is bad?
“Sometimes you just look at a piece and something is off,” said Sacco. An example is a piece at the MOBA called “Elian Gonzales Grandmothers.” The painting features two older women in a lush garden. As the viewer looks at the painting they begin to realize the proportions are off. While the foliage is rendered well and the grandmothers are rendered well, the two don't match.
“There's two main ways it can go wrong,” continued Sacco. “Some of these artists don't know which end of the paint brush to pick up. You see the heart and soul in the painting, but they have no skill. Some other people know what they were doing, but were trying something new or something didn't work out. Some [of the] paintings have good skills in them. Either way, it's important to us that it's interesting. Just like fine art, it has to be something that makes people talk and think.”
One painting that stands out to Sacco is “Sunday On the Pot With George.” The MOBA has owned the painting for many years. Considered a pointillism piece (“a different technique…from what we understand”), the painting portrays a portly man sitting on the toilet in his tighty-whities.
“Why would you put that much effort into a guy sitting half naked on a toilet?” said Sacco. “It's completely baffling. There's incredible detail. That's one extreme of someone who is good…but it's puzzling why they did this.”
A newer piece at the MOBA features a yellow background and big black letters that reads “sensitive.” Underneath is a little cartoon showing a man holding his heart out to a woman, who takes it and throws it on the ground, making him cry.
“I love it because it overwhelms us with emotion,” said Sacco. “A story comes to mind immediately. It's just wonderful. But if you look at it, it's just a scribble. Someone quickly poured their heart out with no idea of what a painting ought to look like, with no plan. But it's very compelling.”
The MOBA in Somerville is open whenever a film is running at the Somerville Theater. It's free admission with a movie ticket, or patrons can email info@museumofbadart.org for a free pass. The other two MOBA galleries are located at the Brookline Interactive Group in Brookline and the New England Wildlife Center, an animal hospital in South Weymouth.
“We are showing works [that] will never [be] seen anywhere else,” said Sacco. “[The Museum Of Bad Art] is one of the few places where people are talking and laughing and having fun. Nobody is going to be overwhelmed with the seriousness of what we are doing.”
Olivia Richman
A graduate of East Connecticut State University in Journalism, Olivia has written for Stonebridge Press & Antiques Marketplace among others. She enjoys writing, running and video games.
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