This Belongs in a Museum
Bringing you museum-approved grammatical errors and typos since 2010.
Oh, and sorry - I DO NOT FOLLOW BACK!
We all have opinions on what is considered “real art”. As someone who grew up with a mom who was a struggling artist, I have many thoughts on this subject, and have covered it a few times already on this blog. I still have the vivid memory of an older student in one of my art history classes going on and on about how Picasso couldn’t draw (um…he could…have you seen his earlier work?) and how much she loved Norman Rockwell. Well, my apologies for sounding like an artsy fartsy snob, but the late Thomas Kinkade was not an artist, he was a businessman. And we all know this is very true, after all he was America’s most-collected living artist, making well over 70 million dollars. His paintings of glowing, oversaturated stone cottages in woodsy environments are supposedly found in one in every twenty American homes, including the White House. Shame on you, Mr. President!
If most museologists believe today’s museums exist only to make money, then the Thomas Kinkade National Archive Gallery fits right in with this world. Located in the historic Harry A. Greene Mansion in Monterey, California, the archive has the largest display of Kinkade “originals”, including some of his earliest known work. And of course there is a gift shop. Hey, where you do think that chick in the photo got her copy of The Thomas Kinkade Story? I mean we’re talking about a guy who licensed his “art” with Hallmark and other corporations like Walmart making it nearly impossible to never see one of his images. Try to escape…you can’t! Since his death last April, there are plans to establish a legacy for the “Painter of Light” with a more official museum and cultural center. While some of you start to prepare for the apocalypse and others attempt to contain your excitement at the thought of a real Thomas Kinkade Museum, let me leave you with this quote from writer Joan Didion:
“A Kinkade painting was typically rendered in slightly surreal pastels. It typically featured a cottage or a house of such insistent coziness as to seem actually sinister, suggestive of a trap designed to attract Hansel and Gretel. Every window was lit, to lurid effect, as if the interior of the structure might be on fire.”
My thanks to Alyson Kluskowski for posting some pictures she took at Wall Drug, which just happens to be competing for tourists with the Corn Palace…oh, and that one other famous landmark…maybe you’ve heard of it…Mount Rushmore.
Don’t know why this South Dakota tourist attraction is proud to proclaim itself as “The World’s Only Corn Palace”…like the world needs more than one? Also, it saddens me that over half a million people stare at decorated corn each year, which is nothing compared to the 2 million (!) who come to the kitschy drug store. First of all, why are that many people even going to South Dakota? Second, I bet the majority of those visitors haven’t visited a “real” museum in years. Support the arts, people and not a bunch of stupid tourist traps. But I sound like a hypocrite, because I’d probably be tempted to go to these places too. I mean, that’s what this blog is about.
A few things to know about the castle of kernels and wall of drugs - over 275,000 ears of corn are used in the redecorating of the palace each year, Lawrence Welk played here five times (ohmigod! who?), about 150 basketball games are played each season by the local high school team the “Mitchell Kernels”, and birds spend a lot of time eating all that delicious corn. I guess they need to change the name to “World’s Largest Birdfeeder”.
And the Drug Wall? Besides giving away over 20,000 free cups of water per day, Wall Drug also provides 5 cent coffee (I’m sure it tastes like crap) and free bumper stickers to visitors not embarrassed to put that shit on their cars. Here is a souvenir from a place that’s not real! Yeah! But the drug store has more than just touristy stuff and cowboy boots to spend your hard-earned dollar on, there is also a western art museum and a chapel based on one found in Iowa. Huh? Iowa? You’ve got to be kidding me.
And don’t ask me what a giant animatronic dinosaur has to do with a drug store, but I’m guessing maybe they died out because they were eating too much corn. So watch out, America! Corn subsidies will one day bite you in the ass.
Over the weekend on a visit to Kenosha, I accidentally bumped into Bjorn’s Clothing Store and Museum, described as the “anti-mall, un-Wal-Mart”. Owner Mike Bjorn’s “Tuxedo Wonder Museum” is just that, a true curiosity. All surfaces in the old Kresge’s dime store are covered with random and absurd things; a skeleton riding on a bicycle hangs from the ceiling, plastic aliens greet you at the door, 95 cent Ralph Marlin ties sit on a rack, matches that supposedly blew up the Hindenberg are on display. Then there’s the “Wall of Shame”, which is made of coat hangers and newspaper clippings from stores that have gone out of his business. Every color and combination of tuxedo imaginable is available for rent. You can try on clothes in one of the themed fitting rooms. While the “Princess Di” is the most popular, the “Over-18” is more interesting with pictures of the “special ladies” of former U.S. Presidents.
Numerous gilded plastic penguin statues sit on the store’s roof. When taking a picture of these spray-painting creations that sat on a garbage can outside the store, Bjorn yelled at me, “Yay! I’m finally famous!”
Opened thirty years ago, Bjorn decided to turn his store into a tourist attraction to display his kitschy personality. “To most other people it looks like junk, but I saw it and said hey, we can have some fun with that…If the day ever comes when you can’t walk into a place like this, as a human race we’re finished.” Exactly. Where else in the world can you try on a sports coat with a taxidermed duck and Pee-Wee Herman doll staring down at you?
I can’t think of a better way to lighten the mood than with a visit to the Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum in Jupiter, Florida. Besides all the endless fan paintings, there’s autographed pictures, personalized notes, movie posters, honorary sheriff’s badges, Burt’s horse carriage made by Dolly Parton, Burt’s baby pictures, Burt’s awards, the “Deliverance” canoe and of course pictures of Burt’s friends.
Unfortunately, like Dom Deluise, the museum is now dead. I think. But to just know it once existed makes me smile. Okay…now back to reality.
(Image by Matt Preece)
This is probably the best example of collecting gone too far. The story goes that this couple named Fred and Myrtle, who lived in a tiny town called Bluff, started collecting paua shells. There were so many that they nailed them to the walls. When Fred and Myrtle died, their house was rebuilt in Christchurch, New Zealand and turned into a museum. So if you like to collect stuff, there’s hope for you yet.
