BOSTON — What qualifies as art? Who decides whether a painting is masterful or meh? And why is Owen Wilson grinning like an awkward schoolboy at Zeus’s naked daughters?
These are just a few of the profound questions that pop up like Roy Lichtenstein thought bubbles at the Museum of Bad Art, a collection of world-class substandard works housed in the Dorchester Brewing Company.
“We always say, ‘Shitty art goes with great beer,’” joked Matt Malloy, the brewery’s owner, before turning serious. “But [MOBA’s staff] is not just throwing up junk. They purposefully have items that foster discussion, like one of my favorites, a unicorn lying with a naked Obama.”
For art enthusiasts with unconventional taste and an undiscerning eye, MOBA is MoMA with liquid courage.
Founded in 1993, the museum has amassed about 900 paintings from thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets, online auctions, donors and curbside trash in 31 states and 15 countries. About 100 pieces are on display at the Dorchester brewery; roughly the same number hang in the Salon du Bad Art at EXMURO, a gallery in Quebec City.
Despite its name, the Museum of Bad Art has standards. Visitors won’t find cocktail napkin doodles, anthropomorphic poker players or Bob Ross knockoffs. Kitsch and velvet (with one exception, “Elvis Descending a Staircase”) are not welcome. In many cases, your kid couldn’t paint these. The body of art references famous works (John Singer Sargent’s “The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit,” Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase”), embraces seminal artistic movements (cubism, surrealism) and features classic subjects (nudes, landscapes, religious iconography).
“In many ways, our basic criteria is the same as any museum. The art has to be sincere, original and interesting,” said Louise Reilly Sacco, the museum’s permanent interim acting executive director. “At traditional museums, the art is interesting because of the excellence in technique or concept. For us, it is interesting because something went wrong and makes it worth talking about.”
Exhibit A: “Owen Wilson and the Three Graces.”
Curator in chief Michael Frank said he might not have accepted the 2024 donation if the piece were simply an homage to the actor. The painting, the artist explained to him, was a protest against the deluge of abstract art created by art school students.
“Owen Wilson” is MOBA’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”
From trash to basements to brewery
Fittingly, the Museum of Bad Art rose from trash.
In 1993, Scott Wilson, a Boston antiques dealer, was trolling for treasures on garbage night when he discovered a painting of a spry senior prancing like a milkmaid in a field of flowers. Wilson was planning to salvage the gold frame and dump the old lady when his friend, Jerry Reilly, Sacco’s brother, proclaimed the artwork “so bad, it’s good.”
The museum’s mission statement was born.
The founders held their first exhibition the following year, in Reilly’s basement in West Roxbury. The one-time event drew so many people, they decided to extend its shelf life. The museum continued to garner attention, especially after the art heist.
The morning after a show in 1996, Reilly discovered that someone had filched “Eileen,” a portrait displayed on the house’s exterior and illuminated by a spotlight. He notified the Boston Police Department, which dispatched a special arts crime squad to investigate.
“Because we had reported that a piece of original art of undetermined value had been stolen from a museum, they were trying to link it to the [Isabella Stewart] Gardner theft” from March 1990, Sacco said. “We made them understand that the value was at the other end of the spectrum.”
The museum offered a $6.50 reward for the painting’s safe return; the thieves later countered with a $5,000 ransom. The staff declined on principle and a shortage of funds. (A decade later, the painting mysteriously appeared on Sacco’s driveway, swaddled in brown paper.)
Even without “Eileen,” visitors continued to show up in droves, including a bus filled with seniors from Rhode Island. To accommodate the crowds, the founders decided to move basements, from Jerry’s to the Dedham Community Theatre’s to the Somerville Theatre’s. At the Dedham venue, the gallery occupied an anteroom in dangerously close proximity to the restroom.
“This allowed people to appreciate the sounds and smells of the men’s bathroom,” Sacco said.
Three years ago, the museum upgraded to the 40,000ish-square-foot brewery south of downtown Boston. The brewpub offered copious gallery space with natural light, built-in security and, if so desired, beer goggles.
“I’ll see people standing in front of the brewery, looking at it, and I’ll walk out and tell them, ‘Yep, it’s the museum, as well,’” Malloy said. “Sometimes you have to coach people inside.”
Nudes and religion
On a recent tour with Frank and Sacco, the pair bypassed the taps flowing at 11:30 a.m. and entered the Oozing My Religion wing, one of several themed galleries on the ground floor. Their eyes looked heavenward, toward a Jesus with tiny hands and a pair of supplicant cats and a portrait of Pope Benedict XVI with mall bangs.
Every painting is accompanied by a label including the artist’s name (if known) and the piece’s provenance, plus insights that can prompt thoughtful discussion or compel the viewer to order another round. Frank, who writes the placards, said one of the museum’s goals is to help people better understand the art or the artist’s intentions.
“A golden figure sits in a pose that suggests ancient wisdom — but with the body language of a man reluctantly modeling for a community college life drawing class,” explains the label for “Not Laughing Buddha.”
Before entering the main exhibition area, a sign above a hand sanitizer dispenser declares, “NAKED PEOPLE IN THE MUSEUM.” The warning stemmed from an incident involving a prior brewery investor who expressed concern that certain naked images on the Wall of Skin were not family-friendly.
The museum removed the triggering piece, “The Itch,” which featured a topless woman scratching her back and left flank. After Malloy took full ownership of the business, the painting returned to its rightful place.
“Louise called me and said, ‘Hey, can we put the boobs back on the wall now?’” Malloy said. “I just find it so funny that, at a brewery of all places, people were concerned about that.”
The museum is still a work in progress.
Though paintings cover nearly every inch of wall space on the ground floor and stairwell, Frank was eyeing a large blank area upstairs, in the Hopservatory. Malloy also requested paintings in the elevator and restrooms, an idea that Frank sniffed at.
Art, good or bad, does not belong in the toilet.
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