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I agree with MOBA’s position but I also think taking it out on these no-name artists misses the target. It is misdirected snobbery.

Some may dislike drawing distinctions between the art of low and high talent artists because it seems mean-spirited towards low talent artists. In other words, they dislike talent-seeking snobs.

Others may dislike it for the opposite reason: that there are many examples of famous artists who don’t display discernible talent. You might say these people dislike talent-eschewing snobs. Paging through an art history textbook yields tons of examples.

Compare Henri Matisse’s Music from 1910. If you told most people a 5th grader painted that, they wouldn’t have been surprised.

Ditto with Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus, 1920. Or even Rodchenko’s single-color paintings. And Arshille Gorky seems to have painted using a paintbrush tied to his forehead.

So maybe that’s the answer. This MOBA should be filled with famous artists, not no-name amateurs. There seems to be no shortage of them. And it’s not like the only alternative to Jackson Pollock is dogs playing poker. There are many obviously talented artists who got far less recognition because talent eschewing snobs pushed out the talent seeking ones.

i find it endearing. a celebration of human striving and failing. it reminds me of the quote from the incredible fiasco episode of This American Life:

> Jack Hitt: And what you have to understand is that everybody in this sort of community understood that they were-- there was certainly a sort of air of everyone sort of reaching beyond their own grasp. Every actor was sort of in a role that was just a little too big for them. Every aspect of the set and the crew-- and rumors had sort of cooked around. There was this huge crew. There were lots of things being painted.

> Ira Glass: See, but this, in fact, is one of the criteria for greatness, is that everyone is just about to reach just beyond their grasp, because that is when greatness can occur.

> Jack Hitt: That's right. That's right. And maybe greatness could have occurred.

To me it looks like pieces are chosen that show a contrast of good and bad - they have amateurish or weird proportions and colors, but generally they have good or at least interesting composition. I couldn't really say how much is intentional vs accidental, for a lot of them.

It didn't feel mean sprited when I went. Many of the pieces were actually good in their own way. Sure, some were simply technically lacking, but those weren't what viewers found interesting. The human fetus made of chicken bones is what I remember.

My sentiments are very similar, and I'm glad to read someone else articulating it here.

Edit: Are we missing something?

Yeah, it seems unkind. What is the purpose here? To teach about art, using art that maybe was someone's learning attempt seems like a huge mistake (and is likely to scare away students). If you aren't teaching, why talk about bad art at all?

Are the works anonymous or do they call out the artist? I'd they're anonumous, I don't see much harm.

I think you're missing the point, or at least the point I took away from it.

Much of the art in the collections is genuinely interesting and enjoyable, even if it is technically "bad", in the sense that it's a poor attempt at a certain type of art.

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

Yes. 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.

Agreed. Art is what you like. There's really no good or bad.

Ha-- Yeah... nobody that sits down and listens to a whole Portsmouth Sinfonia album can plug anything into my stereo, ever.

As backronyms go, this one is a winner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym

I’ve spent many evenings there, the owner definitely has a soft spot for clown portraits

yeah 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.

Yup, 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.

Yup! And before that they were in the basement of the Dedham Community Theater.

Yeah! I think I went there back in 2004.

Thanks! Macroexpanded:

Museum of Bad Art - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26031441 - Feb 2021 (57 comments)

No pictures though. Wish I could see some sample of the art.

In 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...

It was great fun, especially after having a couple beers in the theatre.

I 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.

That'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.

I 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.

“Our collection include sincere art in which something has gone wrong in a way that results in a compelling, interesting image.”

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 skill is not the only factor that matters.

But when I looked at their "collections" page my first thought was "How does this distinguish itself from the bulk of what goes on display in modern fine art exhibits?"

The serious question being posed is: "What makes this particular collection 'bad' but something like 'Voices of Fire' is so 'good' that it was worth charging the Canadian tax payers $1.8 million dollars in 1980s money to acquire for the National Gallery of Canada?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_Fire

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 these pieces were quite incredible, actually.

I actually thought "Blue Mushroom Man" in Poor Traits was alright, although the other "poor traits" were really weird.

I guess some genres attract worse artists than others. Most in the "Oozing My Religion" and "In The Nood" categories are truly atrocious, while some from "MOBA Zoo" are actually not that bad (including my favourite - more because of the retroactively added title than because of the work itself - "You're a Mule, Dear")...

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 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.

It'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.

I didn't realize it had relocated from near the bathrooms in the basement of the Somerville Theater.

The, "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.

When I go through a museum I just powerwalk through pointing at each piece and saying "CRAP" "MEH" or "GOOD".

Browsers should come with an option to ignore `user-select` rules.

Oh wow, that's bullshit. I just tried to copy the address and got a little alert saying "ALERT: Content is protected !!"

Based on the classnames in the HTML it appears to be a Wordpress theme called "Sydney": https://athemes.com/theme/sydney/

It's not even a bad rendition of the naked human body.

Repaired links:

https://museumofbadart.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PAULIN...

... which is the fourth picture in on this page:

https://museumofbadart.org/in-the-nood/