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For every great master painter of genres throughout history, including the contemporary abstract greats, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of artists whose work will never see the outside of their home or studio, or the home of their family members. These artists are like the “American Idol” contestants who insist that they sing well, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. They make art not because they're any good at it, but because they love doing it.
There is nothing as contemporary and abstract as bad art. Bad art has occurred throughout history, but with the advent of contemporary art, modern art, and abstract art, which question popular and standard conceptions of beauty, bad art has flourished. The very essence of all modern art is doing away with convention, and that includes what we consider good (or beautiful) art and bad art.
There's actually a place in the world where these issues aren't just observed, but celebrated: The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA), in Dedham, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. (Their second branch is in nearby Somerville.) MOBA has a permanent collection of 500 pieces of, as their motto states, “art too bad to be ignored.” Their stated goal is, as their founders assert, “to celebrate the labor of artists whose works would be displayed and appreciated in no other forum.”
MOBA was founded in 1994, after antique dealer Scott Wilson found a painting, “Lucy in the Field with Flowers” (which became the museum's signature piece), in the trash. He showed it to some friends, who suggested that he start a collection of similar pieces of art. At first, the initial collection was shown in Wilson's friends' home, but it soon became so popular and large that they had to move it to a more permanent place.
MOBA doesn't just exhibit any bad art, so my attempts at portraiture (which are really just stick figures) wouldn't make it into the museum. Works accepted into MOBA must be original and have serious intent, but they must have significant but interesting flaws. The curators of MOBA refuse to display art that's deliberately kitsch, or bad for bad's sake. At any rate, MOBA is the only museum in the world dedicated to collecting and exhibiting the worst. Its collection is a tribute to the sincerity of the artists who preserved their works even when something has gone horribly wrong in the process. In other words, MOBA celebrates an artist's right to fail, and to fail gloriously.
The very existence of MOBA, some say, is a reaction to the advent of abstract art and modern art in the early 20th century, which made art more esoteric and less accessible for the general public. To most Americans, museums are intimidating places ruled by experts whose tastes are mysterious and impossible for most people to understand. MOBA is in direct opposition to this trend. Its curators insist that they're not parodying art; instead, they're parodying the art world.
The reaction of many of the museum's visitors is very interesting. Some of the exhibits make them laugh out loud, and in some ways, frees them up to have opinions and discuss what they see. Teachers in the Boston area have taken their students to MOBA, and then to more prestigious museums like Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Their MOBA experiences free them from feeling intimidated and to be more expressive about the art there.
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Source by Peter Dranitsin
