The Museum of Bad Art

If you are an art lover there is a museum that you may or may not want to visit. The Museum of Bad Art is as the name implies a museum dedicated to "bad" art. The museum which now has three permanent galleries. The original gallery is located in the basement outside of the men's room of The Dedham Community Theater in Dedham, Massachusetts.
The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) is aim is "to celebrate the labor of artists whose work would be displayed and appreciated in no other forum". Started in 1994 by Scott Wilson and Jerry Reilly after Wilson found a painting in the trash waiting to be collected.

The painting "Lucy in the Field with Flowers" was originally saved for it's frame. It wasn't long before the collection started growing and Reilly and his wife had an exhibition of the art in the basement of their home. The exhibition proved to be very popular so popular in fact that it was determined that a permanent spot was needed to house the works. In 1995 the space in outside of the basement men's room was opened. The museum is free of charge and open only when the theater itself is open.

The Dedham Community Theater is a somewhat run down building and the space is dingy but the collection is amazing. The popularity of the museum lead to the opening of a second gallery in the basement of the Sommerville Theater in Davis Square a trendy neighborhood in Sommerville, Massachusetts. The second gallery is only accessable to ticket holders to events at the theater.

Like all museums security is a major consideration. MOBA not unlike the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has a theft from their collection. In 1996 "Eileen" a portrait was stolen from the Dedham gallery. The museum offered a reward of $6.50 for the return of the painting eventually increasing the reward amount to $36.73. In 2006 the museum was contacted and a ransom demand of $5,000 for the return of the painting was received. When the demand was not paid the painting was returned. It was because of this theft the museum installed a fake video camera with the sign "Warning. This gallery is protected by a fake security camera." This was apparently not enough of a deterent because in 2004 the painting "Self Portrait as a Drainpipe" by Rebecca Harris was stolen and a ransom demand of $10 was issued. This too was ignored and the painting along with a $10 donation was returned.
The museum focuses on bad art not crafts or kitsch. Their motto is "Art to bad to be ignored" and submission standards are very high. Nine out of ten submitted pieces are rejected for not being bad enough. Children's art is not included in the collection. They also do not collect "lesser" art like black velevet paintings or paint by numbers. What pieces make the cut have to have the "Oh my God" quality according to curator Ollie Hollowell. The museum has an on-line collection and sells books with some of it's masterpieces. This can be see at their wesite: http://www.museumofbadart.org/