Museum Intentionally Showcases Particularly Bad Art

"The world's greatest art museums have a new rival in their midst — kind of. While New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre in Paris need not lock up their treasures just yet, there is a new kid on the block. The Museum of Particularly Bad Art in Melbourne, Australia, is attempting to boost the blossoming genre of paintings in poor taste with an annual exhibition and competition spotlighting, well, particularly bad art.

Inspired by the Museum of Bad Art in Boston, Museum of Particularly Bad Art curator Helen Round said her collection was kick-started in 1996 when friends presented her with a portrait of actor Scott Baio. "Maybe you should never verbalize your dreams because someone will always make you follow them," Round joked to AOL News. Subsequently hooked on art of dubious merit, Round began to amass a personal collection of paintings and other works of art that she eventually thought deserved a wider audience. She mounted her debut exhibition in 1999 and another, more controversial, display in 2004. That year, Round used her exhibition to protest the amount of money a local street festival was spending for what she perceived as little return. "I said that for $400 I will get more attention than the $400,000 [they were spending]," Round explained. "The people I was protesting against heard and the next year they gave me funding."

An annual portrait exhibition and competition was born with art sourced from yard sales, secondhand stores and garbage piles. "You find them everywhere," said Round, who says she owns more than 600 pieces of art — a collection that could be the world's worst. "I love earnest renderings and I love a passionate, yet uneducated, hand. That is what strikes a chord for me.""

Read more at AOL News (Thanks XxLadyClaireXx)