Museum of Bad Art

I dislike it. Ostensibly this is taking on art museum snobbery, but many of these works are by amateurs and were literally pulled out the trash. It feels like an embittered teacher making fun of a kid, while the class snickers at the spectacle of public humiliation.

To each of the artists: congratulations for having the courage to trust in your imagination. I hope that others have engaged with your works with greater generosity.

EDIT: There’s a missed opportunity here for a critic to participate in the exhibition by praising the works sincerely. (If museum goers can detect sarcasm then the critique has failed.) That would be more fun and it wouldn’t even be hard since the works have already set expectations low.

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.