EXPLORATIONS

Renegade Tastemakers A Somerville museum highlights art “so bad, it’s good.” by nell porter brown

his winter, an exhibit of con- temporary paintings in the base- ment of Davis Square’s Somerville Theatre features animals. Medusa T Michael Frank and Louise Sacco with the Fries Fish, by Florida artist Christine House, is clearly symbolic—but of what? A wild- stylish doggie stars of Blue Tango (acquired from an Indiana thrift shop) at the Somer- haired lass in a slinky red dress stands with ville museum. Other highlights of the arms extended like pale noodles, bewitching collection: Woman Riding Crustacean, James (befriending?) a perky green fish, rendered (a doleful zebra), and the masterwork that in the Japanese Pokémon tradition, lying in a inspired it all, Lucy in the Field with Flowers pan over roaring flames. Yet the improbable enchantress is herself transfixed by a mys- It all began in 1994 with Lucy in the Field terious squiggled spiral in the twilight sky. with Flowers. Boston arts and antique deal- Nearby is the evocative acrylic Woman er Scott Wilson acquired the portrait of a Riding Crustacean. Here, an explanatory la- handsome grandmother, pensively poised bel suggests that the unknown artist might under an aggressively yellow sky in a wind- have been inspired by actress Debra Winger swept meadow, from a Boston trash heap. holding her own on “a mechanical bull in the works reflect either poor technique, or He’d wanted to sell its frame, but upon see- the 1980 filmUrban Cowboy,” even as the fig- expertise painstakingly applied to produce ing the painting, his pal Jerry Reilly objected, ure “appears to be a blow-up doll mounted hilariously overwrought results, or images using a phrase that would be repeated with atop a giant lobster” or “a study for a larger, that simply elicit a loud “Wow, what is that?” gusto through the years to come by those in- hopefully more erotically realized, work.” “It’s not kitsch,” he emphasized. “But what ducted into MOBA’s guiding renegade spirit: On display through February 25, “MOBA is tongue-and-cheek…is that we’re not mock- “You can’t do that! That’s so bad, it’s good.” Zoo” is the latest show culled from more ing the artists, we’re mocking the knitted eye- Reilly took the tribute to someone else’s el- than 700 works held by the Museum of Bad brows of the world of art criticism.” In es- der and hung it in his own West Roxbury Art (MOBA). “We collect compelling piec- sence, MOBA legitimately questions what, or home, said his sister, Louise Sacco, MOBA’s es in which something has gone wrong in who, makes a piece of art “important”—the current “permanent acting interim execu- the execution or the concept,” said MOBA’s idea that the “right person” has to say, “This is tive director,” during a tour of the gallery. curator-in-chief Michael Frank. Typically, good”—and it has a lot of fun in the process. Word spread of Reilly’s masterpiece, and

12F January - February 2018 Paintings courtesy of the Museum of Bad Art; photographs by Jim Harrison

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On display at others like it that he and Wilson and a few percent of what’s offered by others, and ac- MOBA: Medusa similarly inspired colleagues were soon quires most of the pieces himself through Fries Fish and Centaur and Biker scooping up from yard sales, thrift shops, the region’s thrift shops and other afford- (interpreted as and town dumps. But it wasn’t until “a bus- able venues. Garbage piles in May and June, “An obvious load of seniors from Rhode Island pulled up when local college students are preparing comparison of on his little residential street and got out to to leave town, have yielded some real trea- two bearded men and their come see these,” Sacco said, “that we real- sures. He also scouts around when traveling personal ized we had to do something bigger.” for his paid occupation, as a gig guitarist and horsepower”) Eventually they opened MOBA’s more or as family entertainer Mike the Hatman. “I’ve less permanent gallery in the Somerville The- been to Cuba a lot, and there’s a strong strain atre, itself an historic, and beloved, place; sat- of surreal imagery there,” he said in a phone ellite exhibit sites now exist in Brookline and interview from his Boston living room. “So I Weymouth. All the locales are donated space, recently picked up a piece, that I’m looking there’s no paid MOBA staff, and admission is at here now, that’s pretty damn bizarre.” He free. Donations and proceeds from the sale of guesses it’s some sort of Welsh corgi, with no postcards and a catalog pay for a telephone legs to speak of, in a rural landscape. line, website, and storage of any art that can’t A backlog of artwork awaits cataloguing fit into Frank’s house. and what can be his lengthy interpretation People from all over the world submit process. That might involve Google name photos of potential works, and sometimes searches for any signed pieces (although just mail the works themselves to MOBA, most MOBA works are by unknown art- Frank said, mostly because they’ve seen its ists), as well as research to contextualize Facebook page (which has 53,000 follow- a given painting by identifying other art or ers) or appreciate Frank’s 28 curatorial talks events that might have inspired the work. (of varying educational and entertainment Thus Mini-Marilyn En Pointe, in a show enti- value) on YouTube. tled “Dopple-hangers” at the Weymouth gal- Frank is picky. He accepts less than 25 lery, is a depiction of the American actress

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Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Harvard Squared and sex symbol. But what may initially re- as well as in Canada and Taiwan. “It was Pollock—if that reputation wasn’t out there, semble pigs’ feet poking out from under her not my assumption that the irony of MOBA if he wasn’t a well-acknowledged genius— black dress are actually her own, attached would translate” to Asia, Frank said, “but the first time we saw his painting, we’d say, to unseen knees bent as she’s jumping up, it seemed to be very successful, because the ‘Oh, someone spilled the paint—that’s what smiling at the viewer. Frank knows this be- show was in Taipei and then moved to an- went wrong.’” cause the painting is clearly based on an im- other city and was extended to six weeks.” What’s often disconcerting in the MOBA age he found online by French photographer He’s currently planning for a MOBA show collection is the steroidal level of symbolism. Philippe Halsman, who, in the 1950s, cap- in Tokyo next fall or winter. The exhibit “MOBA Zoo” features a 24-inch tured a series of famous people in mid air. MOBA’s art is primarily representational. canvas titled Liberty and Justice that was donat- With abstract works, Sacco said, it’s much ed in 2015. Frank’s label reads: “Reminiscent Over the years, MOBA has had shows in harder to assess what artists intended to do, of Judith clutching the head of Holofernes, New York City, Santa Fe, and Minneapolis, and if they succeeded: “To look at a Jackson teary-eyed Lady Liberty celebrates her victo-

ALL IN A DAY: A Wintry Jaunt to Newport, Rhode Island

As winds whip off the Atlantic Ocean and waves crash along Newport’s famous Cliff Walk outside, visitors on the “Beneath The Breakers” tour meander through the labyrinthine bowels of the Vanderbilt family’s Gilded Age mansion. The tour covers the development of modern electricity and plumbing, which ran throughout the five-story, 70-room Italian Renaissance-style palazzo. It also explores the hand-dug boiler room, where two massive units once burned as much as 250

tons of coal a year. “But these are summer homes, why did they NEWPORT DISCOVER OF COURTESY need heat?” Raymond Roy, a guide with The Preservation Society A scene from Newport’s of Newport County, asks, then explains: the 5,000 feet of water dramatic Cliff Walk (above); billiards room at pipes snaking through 20 bathrooms could freeze. “From Octo- the Rosecliff mansion; ber 1 to May 1, there were men working The Breakers; a fetching in the boiler room around the clock, Pierre Cardin original on even though the family wasn’t here.” display at Rosecliff The depopulated winter season also With those properties offers contemporary Newport visitors open, Rodman adds, a far quieter and often more intimate more of the city’s restau- look at The Breakers, and at the three rants have added winter other estates owned and opened year- hours, especially in con- round by the preservation society: The junction with the annual Elms, Marble House, and Rosecliff Newport Winter Fes- (where “Pierre Cardin: 70 Years of In- tival (February 16-25). The event—packed with magic shows, novation” offers 42 original outfits from concerts, and children’s activities, along with fêtes featuring food the designer’s private archives through and drinks—traditionally culminates in the popular polo exhibi- February 28). “We don’t really want to tion on Easton Beach. Also open during the winter are the In- grow a lot more in the summer, when ternational Tennis Hall of Fame (worth a stop even if you’re the city is very, very crowded,” says not an avid fan of the sport), and the Newport Art Museum, John G. Rodman, M.P.A. ’93, director of where the photography shows “Lissa Rivera: Beautiful Boy” and museum experi- “Domestic Affairs: Domesticity, Identity, and the Home” open ence for the soci- on January 20. Food and drinks abound. The lively Brick Alley ety’s 11 proper- Pub has terrific comfort fare, or try the funkier Salvation ties, which draw Café; for a more refined dining option, head to the stylish new more than one Stoneacre Brasserie. million admissions The summertime hubbub and pervasive wharf-side tourist a year. “This al- trade can also overwhelm Newport’s elemental natural beauty. lows people to If the weather holds, suit up and get out on the three-mile Cliff see the homes in Walk and exult in the salty sprays and bracing chill of New a different way.” England’s iconic coastal clime. vn.p.b.

12H January - February 2018 Photographs courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Harvard Squared ry over the en- mysteriously spring up, mountains arise tell us exactly what he was doing, what this emy and hopes from flat surfaces, and trees in a natural for- painting means to him.” peace can re- est march along in straight lines. Goofy de- Years after MOBA salvaged the six-foot- turn to the city. signs and strange objects, or blocks of col- square portrait Man in Puffy Disco Hat from In other news, or, crop up where artists seemingly “didn’t a Back Bay loading dock (thanks to a call her jaundiced know what to do with all that empty space from UPS driver Bob Bean), it appeared in bald eagle has on the canvas,” she says. Then there are the a newspaper article on the museum, and a caught a fish.” creative contortions to avoid rendering no- woman called to say, “You’ve got a portrait of That sums it toriously difficult hands and feet. my husband.” “She came over here to see it,” up, but omits In Safe at Home (which hangs in Somer- said Sacco, “she and her twin sister, two little the complex- ville), players’ hands are either roundish tiny ladies in their nineties, and told us that ity of the back- blobs of paint or obscured by mitts, and the when her husband died, she had this paint- The poignant exchange in ground scenes umpire’s protective vest is not on his chest, ing made of him, from two photographs, in Blue Face–Green Pepper of lower Man- but slung over his entire left arm. There are 1978. It had been hanging in her living room defies explanation. hattan with a other such juxtapositions. “Someone on the in the Back Bay and when she was downsiz- military aircraft Red Sox is sliding into home from first base,” ing she couldn’t keep it, so it went out into Document1Document1 11/20/03 runway 11/20/03 (from 11:51 which11:51 AM planes AM Page andPage a1 helicopter 1 Sacco pointed out, “which is as puzzling as the trash. She was thrilled we had it—it was are taking off), a ribbon of highway, and the whatever the beast is that’s eating him.” wonderful.” (The painting is on permanent Dali-style scales of justice dangling from the MOBA occasionally learns of an artwork’s display in Somerville because it is so heavy.) statue’s forearm. Frank resists discussing the provenance only after it has been displayed. Sacco also reported that a surprising num- work beyond the brief explanatory interpre- The strange, dream-like watercolor He Was a ber of artists offer to donate their own works. tation he’s attached to it. “To explain why it’s Friend of Mine, featuring an angry cat and a be- If turned down by MOBA, she surmises, they amusing or funny makes it stop being funny. I nign-looking husky looming in clouds over- may believe the piece is “not that bad.” If ac- prefer to present the stuff and either you get head, was painted by a homeless man and cepted, their creation has an audience. it or you don’t.” given to a benefactor who had provided him Bone Juggling Dog Wearing a Hula Skirt, in Sacco sees other themes within the with food and art supplies, Sacco said. “And “MOBA Zoo,” is among three works MOBA MOBA collection. In landscapes, waterfalls you know if the artist was here he’d be able to has accepted from Mari Newman, known in

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Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Harvard Squared Minneapolis for her Outsider Art. The panel vas. “The young woman’s head is slightly atilt by nonchalant offers to buy MOBA’s art. features a smiling ginger-bread-man-like dog, under the weight of impossibly orange hair in “From time to time people say, ‘I need this with brown fur overlaid with polka dots and this idyllic tableau,” he wrote in the accom- and I will pay a lot of money,’” he said. “And with his tongue sticking out, against a back- panying label. “A tiny songbird has alighted invariably, they offer about $150, and I say no. ground of dog bones, scores of white flowers, from the dwarf tree bearing two green apples We’re a museum, not a gallery,” he added. and swirling patterns of colors dabbed on in onto a one-dimensional chair, contemplating “They wouldn’t go to the MFA and say, ‘I real- minute strokes. “The artist is legally blind,” the coiffure as a potential new home.” ly want that,’ and make a silly offer and expect Sacco explained, “so her works have a lot of It’s a delightful image. Free-spirited, odd- to get anyplace. I mean, seriously, come on.” detail because she can only see when she’s ly Edwardian-look- very close up to the canvas.” According to Sac- ing: any number of co, Newman also has pieces in collections at people might like the Columbus Museum of Art and the New to hang it in their Orleans Museum of Art. own home. “It re- MOBA’s works do share traits found in ally bothers me Outsider Art, Naïve Art, and even folk art, when people say and sometimes it’s hard to tell what the dif- things like, ‘That’s ferences really are. That begs other ques- not bad, why is it tions about its overlaps with fine-art crite- here?’ ‘But, I like ria, Sacco said, “because we’re looking for this!’” Frank said. something that engages, that gets you talk- “Yeah, I like it, ing, that raises questions—you know, all of too—that’s why I those are things that any museum will tell collect it. We like you they are doing.” all these paintings. Malinkova, by Tatyana Lyarson (1998), was They are compel- Strangely found by Frank in a Boston thrift shop in 2012, ling, or we wouldn’t beguiling canines at with the title (Russian for robin redbreast), be doing this.” MOBA artist’s name, and date on the back of the can- He is also irked

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