What is bad art? And why is there a museum in Boston dedicated to celebrating it?
The Museum of Bad Art is situated inside the Dorchester Brewing Company.
Michael Frank, the museum’s curator-in-chief, and Louise Reilly Sacco, the facility’s permanent acting interim executive director, discuss what constitutes bad art versus important art — and who gets to decide which is which.
The full interview on “ART inc.” can be found here.
LOUISE: Scott Wilson and my brother, Jerry Reilly, both are kind of quirky people.
And when they saw this painting of a woman who was maybe sitting, maybe standing in a field of flowers, and the sky was yellow, it was just something that made them smile, and enjoyed looking at art that would never make it in a fine art museum, but that had heart and soul and raised questions.
We started in my brother’s basement, Jerry Reilly’s basement, in a small house in West Roxbury. The owner of the Dedham Community Theatre was a friend of a friend, and he gave us his basement space. We were there for many years. The Somerville Theatre, another old, old movie theater, gave us their basement.
In 2019, we were trying to find space and just didn’t. For almost three years, we were homeless. And through some City of Boston Economic Development people, got connected ... to the Dorchester Brewing Company. They ended up giving us wall space all over the place, so we’re throughout the brewing company now.
MICHAEL: I don’t remember how I heard of the museum, but as soon as I was aware of it, I thought it was pretty interesting, and I donated a number of paintings that I had collected from yard sales.
The conceit of the museum is that we take pieces that either come from yard sales or thrift stores and present them in a formal way, the way any traditional museum would present them.
It’s part of my nature to not be able to pass a yard sale or a thrift store without checking it out. Just to see if there’s something interesting. I don’t know why. It’s part of my personality. The same is true for an interesting pile of trash on the side of the road. We have upwards of 900 pieces in the collection. Clowns are like low-hanging fruit.
If my fellow curators from the MFA could see this place, they would be appalled.
LOUISE: The Museum of Bad Art, it’s a gateway drug to museums and to art.
MICHAEL: We relieve people of feeling somehow that they’re missing something. I think I can tell pretty quickly whether the artist had some purpose, (that) the artist was trying to make some sort of an artistic statement.
LOUISE: We don’t say negative things about the art or the artist. Our stated goal is to collect, exhibit and celebrate this art that would be appreciated nowhere else.
