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Museum of Bad Art
- davrosthedalek 2y agoOh, they moved! I think they used to be in Somerville below the Somerville theater.
- mtlguitarist 2y agoYup, 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.
- caboteria 2y agoYup! And before that they were in the basement of the Dedham Community Theater.
- zactato 2y agoYeah! I think I went there back in 2004.
- purkka 2y agoCame across this today. Especially the collection highlights on Wikipedia [0] really made my day. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Bad_Art#Collection_highlights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Bad_Art#Collection_h...
- celeritascelery 2y agoNo pictures though. Wish I could see some sample of the art.
- commakozzi 2y agojust go to Collections on their main page, OP's link.
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- CPLX 2y agoThis is said to be the most iconic work in the collection: https://arthur.io/art/unknown/lucy-in-the-field-with-flowers https://arthur.io/art/unknown/lucy-in-the-field-with-flowers
- lo_zamoyski 2y agoA morbid wish. Something like wanting to look at photos from a murder investigation.
- pvg 2y agoMore discussion/picks from a couple of years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26031441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26031441
- dang 2y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: Museum of Bad Art - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26031441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26031441 - Feb 2021 (57 comments)
- willis936 2y agoI went there this past Summer. It isn't advertised externally. Look for the brewery.
- bhickey 2y agoI didn't realize it had relocated from near the bathrooms in the basement of the Somerville Theater.
- gwbas1c 2y agoWhat's wrong with the page? I can't select the address to copy & paste it into maps. Please don't break the web.
- Zealotux 2y agoBrowsers should come with an option to ignore `user-select` rules.
- debugnik 2y agoIt's worse than that, they're using some lame WordPress plugin called wp-content-copy-protector to hijack shorcuts to copy or view source as well. Really hostile and yet ridiculously easy to bypass.
- smsm42 2y ago> show_wpcp_message('You are not allowed to copy content or view source'); Yes I am, you poor deluded soul, yes I am. There's absolutely no way for you to control what happens to the content once it has left your server. And using such tricks is a huge red flag about the professionalism of the site makers.
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- weberer 2y agoOh wow, that's bullshit. I just tried to copy the address and got a little alert saying "ALERT: Content is protected !!"
- 1970-01-01 2y agoFuck this anti-copy bullshit site. Here: The Museum Of Bad Art, MOBA MOBA is the world’s only museum dedicated to the collection, exhibition, and celebration of art that would not be welcomed to any traditional art museum. Our collection includes sincere art in which something has gone wrong in a way that results in a compelling, interesting image. Location: inside the Dorchester Brewing Co, 1250 Massachusetts Ave, Boston MA 02125. Hours: Sunday Monday 11:30-9, Tuesday through Thursday 11:30-10, Friday and Saturday 11:30-11. Winter 2024/25 Hours: Wednesday, Nov 27, close 6pm; Thanksgiving, Nov 28, CLOSED. Christmas Eve, Dec 24, close 6pm; Christmas, Dec 25, CLOSED. New Year’s Eve, Dec 31, open until midnight; New Year’s Day, Jan 1, open 11:30 to 10pm January and February, every Monday, open at 3pm. Admission: free Dorchester Brewing Company DBco is Boston’s hottest Tap Room filled with fresh craft beer. It’s right on Mass Ave in Dorchester! Admission to MOBA is free only because DBco allows (even encourages) MOBA to adorn the walls in the taproom, game room, the stairwell, even on the outside of the elevator shaft and a walk-in refrigerator. While you’re there, try house-made craft beers, cider, seltzer, and wine. Here’s the Taproom menu. Enjoy lunch or dinner from their onsite food partner, M&M Barbecue. DBco has a Rooftop Greenhouse and outdoor roof deck with views of the Boston skyline; Game Room with skeeball, pinball, arcade games, pop-a-shot, and tabletop shuffleboard; and public events like Yappy Hour, Trivia Contests, Crafting Sessions, and more. Event Calendar here. Meet the MOBA Staff WSBE RI PBS (Rhode Island Public Broadcast System) came all the way to Boston to learn about the Museum Of Bad Art. The result is a 7-minute video introducing MOBA’s people, history, and art. It was broadcast on their weekly show, Art, Inc. and is now available on YouTube. If you want to meet Curator-in-chief Michael Frank and Permanent Interim Acting Executive Director Louise Reilly Sacco, aka Mike and Louise, take a look here.
- Yawrehto 2y agoHonestly, most of them are still better than I could draw.
- ferguu_ 2y agoMy 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.
- vundercind 2y agoEntertainingly bad is different from simply bad in every(?) art. So-bad-it's-good film isn't the worst film in every dimension—often it's competently- or even well-made in at least some ways. Films that are simply all-around bad, made with no amount of skill at the craft and insufficient effort, usually aren't entertaining and aren't the kind of thing anybody wants to watch. So-bad-it's-good is defined by being a kind of bad that one can still appreciate, even if part of the appreciation is of the ways in which it is bad. There was a thread on here about bad songs the other day, and the kind of bad people meant wasn't, like, an untalented and under-practiced 9-year-old screeching out their original composition on a violin. Obviously that's worse than nearly anything, but nobody means that when they talk about something like "what are the worst songs?" A credible effort has to be put in for anyone to even care to think about it to shit on it. I think it's still useful to call those categories "bad", even if they're not the most bad. Often the badness is what distinguishes them from the merely forgettable.
- ferguu_ 2y agoI definitely agree with you - it reminds me of an inverted bell curve, or the YouTube series "The Search For The Worst" - It is far better from a viewer's perspective to wholeheartedly and absolutely fail, then create something so mediocre and lacking in soul that it isn't worth a thought. I suppose the primary purpose of an art gallery, at least this one, is to entertain, and MOMA (Mueseum Of Mediocre Art in this case) was already taken [https://www.moma.org/ https://www.moma.org/] I'm reminded also of the corporate art style [https://thebroadsideonline.com/17614/opinion/opinion-the-corporate-art-style-and-why-it-doesnt-feel-like-real-art/ https://thebroadsideonline.com/17614/opinion/opinion-the-cor...] - every effort was taken to produce something so inoffensive and average that it could not possibly provoke any emotion in any demographic. Nobody would ever say that this is their favourite art style. What's your favourite piece within the collections on the MOBA website?
- yapyap 2y agoWe can finally classify art as bad now?
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- trash_cat 2y agoIf this would have been the most prestigious and highly regarded Art I wouldn´t be able to tell the difference.
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- QuadmasterXLII 2y agoThis 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
- chefandy 2y agoHa-- Yeah... nobody that sits down and listens to a whole Portsmouth Sinfonia album can plug anything into my stereo, ever.
- _spduchamp 2y agoI 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.
- nerdponx 2y agoI didn't know there was a bad art museum there. However I do strongly recommend the penis museum in Reykjavik.
- graypegg 2y agoI 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 high, and it was still funny to go and get pictures! But that's about all the experience really is.
- bitwize 2y agoThe 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").
- jihadjihad 2y agoThe 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. 0: https://museumofbadart.org/sports/ https://museumofbadart.org/sports/
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- vundercind 2y agoThe, "this is among the largest crayon on canvas pieces one can ever hope to see" part is just the best. Annotating bad art is itself an art.
- BSDobelix 2y agoThe Museum should ask if Ubisoft, Bethesda and EA would like to get involved (Digital "Art").
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- tompetry 2y agoNow this is what I call taste.
- mincer_ray 2y ago[flagged]
- jhedwards 2y agoBased on the classnames in the HTML it appears to be a Wordpress theme called "Sydney": https://athemes.com/theme/sydney/ https://athemes.com/theme/sydney/
- debugnik 2y agoNah the anti-copy features are a lame plugin called wp-content-copy-protector. Stupid-easy to bypass.
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- muffwiggler 2y ago[dead]
- nerdponx 2y agoI 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?
- the_af 2y agoIn 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...
- dbalatero 2y agoThe only one? Cafe Racer in Seattle had an excellent collection in their OBAMA room (Official Bad Art Museum of Art) :P
- weard_beard 2y agoAs backronyms go, this one is a winner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym
- gxs 2y agoThat 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.
- broabprobe 2y agoyeah 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.
- sameoldtune 2y agoI’ve spent many evenings there, the owner definitely has a soft spot for clown portraits
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- _joel 2y ago"Terrible Art in Charity Shops" is quite an amusing facebook group, too.
- zxexz 2y agoOh cool, they have a new location! I missed poking around after shows at the Somerville Theater.
- BenFranklin100 2y agoIt was great fun, especially after having a couple beers in the theatre.
- eadmund 2y agoConsider 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.
- the_af 2y agoThat'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.
- dahart 2y ago“Our collection include sincere art in which something has gone wrong in a way that results in a compelling, interesting image.”
- Brian_K_White 2y agoI 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.
- the_af 2y agoSome 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?
- d--b 2y agoHonestly... It's not that terrible... The comments are really harsh. 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 2y agoIt'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.
- cratermoon 2y agoThe rise of generative AI will usher in a golden age of bad art.
- otteromkram 2y ago> "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.“ Cold blooded. (ref - https://museumofbadart.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PAULINE-RESTING.jpg)(NSFW) https://museumofbadart.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PAULIN...
- rectang 2y agoRepaired links: https://museumofbadart.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PAULINE-RESTING.jpg https://museumofbadart.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PAULIN... ... which is the fourth picture in on this page: https://museumofbadart.org/in-the-nood/ https://museumofbadart.org/in-the-nood/
- the_af 2y agoIt's not even a bad rendition of the naked human body.
- calebm 2y agoA 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.
- bigstrat2003 2y agoYeah, 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.
- verteu 2y agoPerhaps 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.
- card_zero 2y agoModernism is over 100 years old!
- pavl- 2y agoWhy 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.
- benrutter 2y agoI 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.
- chefandy 2y agoI 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.
- geophile 2y agoI 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.
- marticer1 2y ago[dead]
- rectang 2y agoI 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.
- eth0up 2y agoMy sentiments are very similar, and I'm glad to read someone else articulating it here. Edit: Are we missing something?
- BenFranklin100 2y agoYes. A sense of humor.
- rectang 2y agoThis entire HN page is a performance piece. There is only one commenter who is not in on it.
- BenFranklin100 2y agoI’ve been had.
- c0detrafficker 2y ago[flagged]
- smsm42 2y agoTo 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.
- gcau 2y agoYes. 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.
- SoftTalker 2y agoAgreed. Art is what you like. There's really no good or bad.
- bwanab 2y agoI 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.
- asdfasvea 2y agoThe 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.
- nathan_compton 2y agoWhen I go through a museum I just powerwalk through pointing at each piece and saying "CRAP" "MEH" or "GOOD".
- Fricken 2y agoMany exhibits do nothing for me, but often enough I'm emotionally spent after one exhibit and have to come back another day to view more of the gallery.
- OCASMv2 2y agoI find this indistinguishable from any modern/contemporary art museum.
- thordenmark 2y agoI use the MOBA as a resource for my classes of what not to do (I teach at an art university). There are so many spectacularly bad examples useful for any topic I'm teaching.
- t43562 2y ago"What is art anyhow?" 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.
- hermitcrab 2y agoThere is far worse in the Tate Modern, in London.
- MarkusWandel 2y agoThe 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.
- Tanoc 2y agoY'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.
- southernplaces7 2y agoThe 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?