 | |
  MOBA's location  Museum of Bad Art (the United States) | |
| Established | 1993 |
|---|---|
| Location | 1250 Massachusetts Ave (Dorchester Brewing Company), Boston, Massachusetts |
| Coordinates | 42°19′19″N 71°03′45″W / 42.32194°N 71.06250°W |
| Type | Art museum |
| Director | Louise Reilly Sacco |
| Curator | Michael Frank |
| Public transit access | MBTA subway: Red Line at JFK/UMass station |
| Website | www.museumofbadart.org |
The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) is a privately owned museum whose stated aim is "to celebrate the labor of artists whose work would be displayed and appreciated in no other forum".[1] It was originally in Dedham, Massachusetts, and is currently in Boston, Massachusetts.[2] Its permanent collection includes over 700 pieces of "art too bad to be ignored", 25 to 35 of which are on public display at any one time.[3]
MOBA was founded in 1993, after antique dealer Scott Wilson showed a painting he had recovered from the trash to some friends, who suggested starting a collection. Within a year, receptions held in Wilson's friends' home were so well-attended that the collection needed its own viewing space. The museum then moved to the basement of a theater in Dedham. Explaining the reasoning behind the museum's establishment, co-founder Jerry Reilly said in 1995: "While every city in the world has at least one museum dedicated to the best of art, MOBA is the only museum dedicated to collecting and exhibiting the worst."[4] To be included in MOBA's collection, works must be original and have serious intent, but they must also have significant flaws without being boring; curators are not interested in displaying deliberate kitsch.
MOBA has been mentioned in dozens of off-the-beaten-path guides to Boston, featured in international newspapers and magazines, and has inspired several other collections throughout the world. Deborah Solomon of The New York Times Magazine noted that the attention the Museum of Bad Art receives is part of a wider trend of museums displaying "the best bad art".[5] The museum has been criticized for being anti-art, but the founders deny this, responding that its collection is a tribute to the sincerity of the artists who persevered with their art despite something going horribly wrong in the process. According to co-founder Marie Jackson, "We are here to celebrate an artist's right to fail, gloriously."[6] In a chat with the Sunn on how to identify bad art, MOBA's curator Michael Frank says, "Here at the Museum Of Bad Art (MOBA) we collect art that we believe was created in a serious attempt to make art but in which, either in the execution or original concept, something has gone terribly wrong. Rather than simply amateurish, the resulting image must be, for one reason or another, compelling to be considered museum-worthy. Some of the most interesting pieces in our collection are ones that show that the artist had some technical skill, but made some questionable decisions such as over-the-top imagery."[7]
- ^ Frank & Sacco 2008, p. vii
- ^ Symkus, Ed (August 24, 2022). "Have some good fun with bad art in Dorchester". Boston Globe.
- ^ Walkup, Nancy (March 2005). "ArtEd Online — NAEA in Boston — Reproducible Handout". School Arts. 104 (7): 36. ISSN 0036-6463. OCLC 1765119.
- ^ Mutch, David (November 2, 1995). "Art from the Bottom of the Heap: A 'Museum' Devoted to Bad Painting". The Christian Science Monitor. p. 13.
- ^ Solomon, Deborah. "In Praise of Bad Art". The New York Times, January 24, 1999
- ^ "The Gallery of the Garish Masterpieces of Bad Art Archived 2012-10-13 at the Wayback Machine". The Irish Times, September 18, 1999. 9
- ^ Sunn, "A few words on art"