THINKING ABOUT

AESTHETIC

S

THINK ABOUT:

“Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all.”-Oscar Wilde

Do you agree with this quote?Why or why not?

WHAT IS AESTHETICS?• A set of principles concerned with the

nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art.

• The branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste. (From dictionary.com)

WHAT IS AESTHETICS?

• It is what we consider as beautiful.

• It is our artistic taste.

MUSEUM OF BAD ART1. The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) opened in 1996 in the basement of a home in the West Roxbury Section of Boston. 2. It has a permanent collection, regularly mounts exhibitions, and has openings. 3. According to one of the curators, bad art is in the eye of the beholder. Seventy-five percent of works submitted to the museum are rejected because they show too much technical skill. Some items are rejected because they are not original (a yellow happy face for example). 4. Guidelines for bad art include "unusual use of color, interesting and different perspective, and strange subject matter." 5. The curators never pay more than $6.50 for a piece of art.6. About the artists, a curator says, "We hold them in high regard. So far we have identified about twelve of the artists included and not a single one has been offended. After all, MOBA is celebrating the right to fail."

Exhibiting Bad Art (Excerpt from Thinking Through Aesthetics by Marilyn G. Stewart)

EXAMPLES FROM THE MOBA

MUSEUM OF BAD ARTExplain what they mean by celebrating a

“right to fail”?

What would cause so much interest in bad art?

Please respond on your paper.

MUSEUM OF BAD ARTNow turn to your neighbor discuss what

you wrote down.

Do you agree or disagree with each other?

What do you agree with? What do you disagree with?

PROJECTGrab a blank piece of brown paper and a

pencil.Draw the most uninteresting, unoriginal,

“bad” art that you can possibly think of.(Keep it appropriate though )

PROJECT ENDRip up your artwork when you

havefinished!

Understand that it is OKAY to make mistakes and not do

well on every project. Learn from your mistakes and

dobetter next time.