How can I draw like that? (Image from Museum of Bad Art)

Everyone appreciates good art, but it’s the true connoisseur who can appreciate bad art—rotten, lousy, stinking art that’s so awful it causes one’s lips to curl in an appreciative smile. If this is your oeuvre, then check out the Museum of Bad Art, in Somerville, Massachusetts. It’s roughly 225 miles north of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but it seems further.

MOBA, as it calls itself, “is a community-based, private institution dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms and in all its glory.”

Paintings include a Mona Lisa knock-off that looks more like a Moaning Lisa, and a still life of pink carnations that are inexplicably standing upright without the help of a vase, as if defying gravity. “Free from the constraints of their vase, the flowers stand independently tall, proud, and in full bloom,” reads the description.

MOBA definitely has tongue firmly implanted in cheek, but the result is a rollicking good time, and even an appreciation of the artist. Find out more »