Bringing the worst of art to the widest of audiences
How is it one seldom takes advantage of the cultural attractions in one’s own back yard? I’ve worked around the corner from the Museum of Bad Art since its creation in 1994, and I have yet to visit.
Perhaps it’s because the museum is located in the basement of the Dedham Community Center, next to the men’s room. Not open during my lunch hour. Okay, lunch half hour. You wormed that out of me!
Perhaps it’s because so much of the collection is available for viewing online, with thoughtful captions and useful histories.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “how is this artwork any worse than all that awful modern crap that sells for thousands and is celebrated by millions, like just about anything in the collection at the Hirshhorn?” See? I don’t have to take the cheap and obvious shot; my cheap and obvious readers are thinking it anyway.
Give their website a browse (MOBA, not the Hirshhorn. Yuck, man). It’s more compelling than you think. Because I know what you think. Remember?
Posted: June 27th, 2007 under art, personal.
Comments: 13
Comments
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 27, 2007, 10:18 am
I was so convinced I’d blogged about this before, I did a search of the old WordPress site. Nope. When and where would I have written an essay about MOBA?
Today’s special in the company cafeteria: chili. Perhaps the Day of Saltine is significant, after all.
Comment from whtshrbbt/amuirin
Time: June 27, 2007, 11:19 am
That was kinda fun. Satan is a stud in that unseen collection.
Comment from Gnus
Time: June 27, 2007, 11:46 am
Don’t know about Saltine, but today’s weather forecast is about perfect. For here, anyways. Sweasel could be getting a feed from NOAA for all I can tell.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 27, 2007, 4:41 pm
It’s McGoo. We all feel a little ‘meh’ without McGoo.
He is the wind beneath our jeans.
Comment from OmbudsBen
Time: June 27, 2007, 5:07 pm
Reminds me of a bunch of contemporary quotes I read for the first Impressionist (“New Painting”) exhibits in Paris. One critic felt the paintings were so bad he feared pregnant women might miscarry.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: June 27, 2007, 7:24 pm
At risk of seeming gross, many Impressionist paintings make me feel that pregnant women have miscarried.
Myopia as an artform.
Comment from Lokki
Time: June 28, 2007, 11:35 am
The rain here in Texas is all anyone can talk about, or even think of. It’s been raining so long that everyone is talking Noah-talk, and in a few places, an Ark would have been a pretty nice thing to have in the last few days.
Seven inches in 3 days, and it’s still raining. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, since one (former) town got 19 inches in 10 hours yesterday. It’s gone. Even before that, it’d raining for literally six weeks. Things are pretty soaked, and we’re tired of it.
When the rain comes……..
Usually, I like the rain. One day, years ago, when I was complaining about it to an old man, he said, “There aren’t many fights on rainy days. People slow down a little and the world is a better place on rainy days”. Over time, I’ve come to agree with him.
Since I’m (acting) poetry geek in McGoo and JW’s absence, here’s a poem about rain that I’ve always loved:
Westron wind, when wilt thou blow?
That the small rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.
That’s exactly what I want this morning.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: June 28, 2007, 11:46 am
Thanks for that, Lokki.
ThoughtI’d killed the damned thread!
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 28, 2007, 11:54 am
snf, snf…anybody smell badger?
I’m crowing about the death of the immigration bill, between bouts of…trying desperately to concentrate on this stupid deadline tomorrow.
Comment from Brandon
Time: June 28, 2007, 12:16 pm
It wasn’t even a close vote (14). Of course, it was “a victory for fear-mongering”. I guess I am a fear mongerer. The word Monger is pretty cool – A Monger is a dealer in a specific commodity with such flattering synonyms as “huckster, marketer, pusher, seller, solicitor, and vender). I guess it can be a verb as well – as in “They adorable children mongered their lemonade”.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 28, 2007, 12:23 pm
Fear. Fear is good. Fear is what gets me out of bed in the morning and makes me put on clothing before leaving the house.
Comment from Lokki
Time: June 28, 2007, 12:29 pm
Actually, the cat gets me out of bed in the morning and chance of rain or sunburn (as the case may be) makes me put on clothes.
Well, I suppose it’s fear of what the cat will do if I don’t don’t get out of bed and feed her breakfast…. so maybe in the final analysis, you’re right.
Comment from Gnus
Time: June 28, 2007, 1:49 pm
Lokki, I hear that the itsy bitsy spider has given up in your neck of the woods. Moved to New Mexico or some such place.
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