Museum Month: The Museum Of Bad Art In Boston, Massachusetts

by Jessica Festa on

Everywhere you travel, you’ll find countless art museums dedicated to contemporary art, modern art, fine art and period-focused art; however, when do you ever get to visit a museum devoted to bad art? The Museum Of Bad Art (MOBA), a community-based, private institution, is “dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its form and in all its glory.”

At MOBA, you’ll find the “best” pieces of art that are not up to the usual aesthetic standard most museum-goers are accustomed to. This may be an oxymoron, but it’s a great place to admire creative works without having to be an art connoisseur. You’ll be able to relax and have fun while admiring pieces from categories like “unlikely landscapes, seascapes, and still lifes,” “in the nood,” “poor traits” and “blue people.” Each piece comes with a funny and informative description. While some of the works aren’t too terrible, there are others that will have you wondering what the artist could have possibly been thinking.

Admission to the museum is free. MOBA has three locations near Boston, Massachusetts, including the Dedham Community Theatre, the Somerville Theatre and the Brookline Access Television. Click here for directions and maps.

Museum Month: The Neon Museum In Las Vegas, Nevada

by Libby Zay on

When the plug is pulled at casinos, chapels, restaurants and other businesses, Sin City’s iconic art form – the neon sign – used to get sent to the scrapyard. That was until The Neon Museum, a 501c3 non-profit, began collecting and preserving these timeworn signs, ensuring the treasures won’t be forgotten.

Since 1996, volunteers have devoted their time to preserving the legacy of the disregarded signs of Las Vegas, keeping them in a dusty, three-acre lot dubbed the “Neon Boneyard.” Wander around and find dead casino marquees, unlit wedding chapel signs and bygone used car billboards scattered about like noodles in alphabet soup.

%Gallery-154843%Not only is the Neon Boneyard full of cool visuals, it also illuminates a side of Las Vegas history that many people wouldn’t otherwise get a chance to see. For now, travelers must make an appointment in advance in order to visit the Neon Boneyard. However, there are plans to open a bona fide visitor’s center in what was once the lobby of the La Concha Motel, a 1960’s curvilinear structure that almost fell victim to a bulldozer in 2003 until preservationists swept in and relocated the lobby to the Boneyard.

The team has worked to assemble an outdoor “gallery” of restored signs along the east end of Fremont Street, where visitors can check out nine once forgotten signs that have been restored to blinking glory. That gallery, which includes a lamp-shaped sign originally installed in 1966 at the Aladdin Hotel, is available free to the public 24 hours per day.

Museum Month: American Visionary Art Museum In Baltimore, Maryland

by Libby Zay on

An enormous ball made out of more than 18,000 bras, a replica of the ill-fated Lusitania constructed of nearly 200,000 toothpicks, and a floor mat created out of hundreds of toothbrushes are just a few of the quirky treasures to be found inside Baltimore‘s imaginative American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM). While it’s a lesser-known spot on the city’s tourist circuit, once anyone catches sight of the museum’s exterior – a found-object mosaic made out of tiny pieces of mirror and glass – it’s impossible not to be curious about what is kept inside.

Wander through the halls and galleries of the museum and you’ll be greeted by an eccentric collection of “outsider art,” or work made my self-taught art makers who have little or no contact with the mainstream art world. It’s common for these artists to be discovered after their deaths, and often times their artwork illustrates unconventional ideas, extreme mental states or extravagant fantasy worlds. Some of the pieces in the museum are thought provoking, while much of it is laugh-out-loud funny – but no matter what, the AVAM has the potential to make you change your opinion on what can be considered art.

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Here’s a sampling of some of the fascinating things to be discovered in the museum’s three buildings and sculpture garden:

  • A 55-foot wind-powered sculpture called a “whirligig”
  • A collection of non-electronic machines that visitors operate by pushing buttons
  • Robots made out of streetlights and vacuum cleaner parts
  • Framed, aerial photographs of crop circles
  • A collection of postcards from the Post Secret project
  • Sculptures made out of Styrofoam cups
  • The “Flatulence Post,” a podium decorated with fart art that plays recordings of all the winning farts from an annual competition
  • An expansive Pez collection
  • Several “art cars” covered in mosaics
  • An observation deck fashioned to look like a bird’s nest

If visiting Baltimore in the spring, check and see what dates the museum hosts the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race (this year, it was May 5). For the race, entrants create wacky, roving sculptures that traverse both land and sea on a 15-mile dash. Racers receive awards such as the “Golden Dinosaur” awarded for the most memorable breakdown and the “Grand Mediocre Champion” for the sculpture that finishes dead center in the middle of all entrants. Some of these kinetic sculptures are on display in a section of the museum.

The summer months, on the other hand, bring an outdoor film series to the AVAM. The museum takes advantage of a natural amphitheater formed by the adjacent Federal Hill, screening movies on a 30-foot wide screen that hangs from a golden hand sculpture on the west side of the museum. The screenings happen on Thursdays, so if you’re in town bring a lawn chair or blanket to the hill and enjoy the show.

All year round, be sure to browse the Sideshow Shop, the museum’s version of a gift shop that is packed with oddities and other goodies. Round out the trip at Mr. Rain’s Fun House, a moderately-priced restaurant serving American food and hand-crafted cocktails that match the creativity of the museum, and you will have had a day that truly defies convention in Baltimore.


Photo by Libby Zay.

Museum Month: The Reliquary In Brooklyn, New York

by Jessica Festa on

For something quirky to do in New York, visiting the City Reliquary in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is a great option. The museum – which is actually a not-for-profit – houses artifacts and exhibits of the city. While this may sound run-of-the-mill, the pieces on display are anything but ordinary.

On their website it states that “through permanent display of New York City artifacts, rotating exhibits of community collections, and annual cultural events, The City Reliquary connects visitors to both the past and present of New York.”

So, what kind of things can visitors expect to see? Building fragments, L train paint chips, a “very old shovel,” subway tokens, horse bones, water from the old aqueduct system, postcards, geological core samples, rotting birthday cakes, antique subway maps, old films, roller skates, rat bones, light-up statues and a lot more.

For many, it’s a unique, off-the-beaten-path way to learn about New York. Not only that, but the museum hosts fun events, like film festivals, concerts, block parties and “show and tells,” where people can bring in their own New York artifacts to showcase. Plus, the museum is free – although there is a suggested donation – and serves cheap beer.

The City Reliquary is open Thursday through Sunday, from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. It is located at 370 Metropolitan Avenue, which you can reach by taking the L train to Lorimer Street.