THESE UNUSUAL INSTITUTIONS CELEBRATE EVERYTHING FROM BIKINIS AND BAD ART TO NEON SIGNS AND UNDERWATER SCULPTURE
By Andrew Nodell
Museums throughout the world showcase the boundless and varied potential of human creativity. Renowned institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Uffizi Galleries and the Louvre offer an enriching high-culture experience with galleries of masterpieces from the world’s most celebrated artists. But look further afield and discover lesser-known collections that celebrate the weird, wacky and wonderful elements of the creative spirit. From the kaleidoscopic spectacle of the Neon Museum in Las Vegas to the somewhat macabre exploration of funereal artifacts at the Museum for Sepulchral Culture in Kassel, Germany, this list of quirky museums around the world will take you down a path less traveled and may just inspire you to broaden the itinerary of your next cultural vacation.
Photo by Florian Busch © Bikini Art Museum
Bikini Art Museum
Bad Rappenau, Germany
Billed as the world’s first museum for swimwear and bathing culture, Germany’s Bikini Art Museum showcases the long and short of oceanside outfits from 1870 to the present day, interwoven with a feminist narrative exploring the swimsuit’s evolution. The museum’s approximately 400 displayed garments and more than 100 related artworks explore how styles, trends and even legislation surrounding female bathing suits have evolved with the global women’s liberation movement. This unique collection includes 13 rare examples from bikini inventor Louis Réard dating from the 1940s, a black velvet and lace one-piece worn by Marilyn Monroe in a pin-up shoot, Princess Leia’s provocative embellished bikini worn by Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi, and both David Hasselhoff’s swim trunks and Pamela Anderson’s iconic red one-piece from Baywatch. bikiniartmuseum.com
Photo courtesy the Neon Museum, Las Vegas
The Neon Museum
Las Vegas, Nevada
Spanning more than 2 acres in the heart of Sin City, the Neon Museum of Las Vegas has been dedicated to collecting, preserving and exhibiting more than 800 iconic Vegas signs from more than 200 properties for nearly three decades. The luminous campus includes an immersive audiovisual experience called “Brilliant!” that employs projection mapping technology to reilluminate more than 40 nonoperational signs, while outdoor galleries include the maze-like Neon Boneyard with more than 250 unrestored signs illuminated with ground lighting and 26 signs that have been restored and electrified. neonmuseum.org
Photo courtesy Underwater Museum of Art
Underwater Museum of Art
Walton County, Florida
In a project that blends man-made and natural beauty with marine preservation efforts, the Underwater Museum of Art in the Gulf of Mexico off Grayton Beach, Florida, was produced in collaboration with the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County and the South Walton Artificial Reef Association. Each year, the museum submerges sculptures by a range of artists, offering a visually stunning experience for visitors while creating an artificial reef that makes for an ideal breeding place and haven for small fish, sea turtles, bottlenose dolphins and invertebrates. This evolving habitat also offers refuge for young fish to mature before moving out into more exposed waters, which aids in the sustainability of the local marine life. The museum currently has more than 30 sculptures in a designated 1-acre patch of the Gulf of Mexico, which is free of charge for divers to explore, with more sculptures by additional artists to be added each year. umafl.org
Photo courtesy Hobbiton
Hobbiton
Matamata, New Zealand
In 1998, Kiwi filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson was exploring the verdant rolling hills and lush pastures of his native country to find what would become Hobbiton: the fairy-tale village that served as set to both the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. Today, this fictitious fairyland is a real-life tourist destination that boasts 44 permanently constructed Hobbit Holes across a 12-acre plot within a working sheep farm. Journey to Middle-earth with guided tours of the former set, which includes the opportunity to explore detailed interiors of a Hobbit Hole, take in the natural beauty of the Shire and enjoy a beverage at the Green Dragon Inn – the on-screen meeting place for Hobbiton residents, which has been fully reconstructed to appear as it did in the films. hobbitontours.com
Photo courtesy Circus World Museum
Circus World Museum
Baraboo, Wisconsin
They are not clowning around at the Circus World Museum, which aims to honor and preserve American circus culture on their south central Wisconsin campus, which was the site of Ringling Bros. Circus from 1884 to 1918. Now operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society, the museum spans 64 acres with 30 structures that include a clown car garage, big top tents, the world’s foremost circus research facility, exhibitions of antique bedazzled performance costumes and more than 260 colorful circus wagons. Daily on-site circus acts include a human cannonball, clowns, jugglers and aerialists. circusworld.wisconsinhistory.org
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Photo courtesy National Comedy Center
Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum & National Comedy Center
Jamestown, New York
It has been more than 70 years since the world fell in love with Lucy through her eponymous sitcom, but residents of Jamestown, New York, have loved Lucille Ball much longer than that. The redheaded comedienne hails from this small town in western New York, and since 1996, the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum has showcased the lives and careers of TV’s best-loved husband-and-wife comedy duo. Attractions include re-created sets of the Ricardos’ New York apartment and Hollywood hotel suite, I Love Lucy props and costumes, and an interactive installation that gives visitors the opportunity to film their very own Vitameatavegamin commercial. Dual admission is available for the nearby National Comedy Center, which offers more than 50 immersive exhibits exploring the history of modern comedy from stand-up to film, radio, TV, cartoons and the internet. lucydesi.com
Vanitas Still Life Dutch, around 1700. Photo by Frank Hellwig. © Museum for Sepulchral Culture.
Museum for Sepulchral Culture
Kassel, Germany
Founded in 1992 and located in the central German town of Kassel, the Museum for Sepulchral Culture is the only institution in the world devoted to exploring the cultural customs and scientific standards around life’s biggest inevitability: death. From the Latin “sepulcrum,” meaning burial place, the Museum of Sepulchral Culture may seem overly morbid at first glance, but its thoughtful curation helps to respectfully contextualize practices and traditions surrounding dying, death, burial and remembrance across various eras, religions and cultures in Germany. The permanent collection includes historical painted coffins and skulls, antique mourning jewelry and horse-drawn hearses that illustrate how burial culture has evolved from generation to generation. Looking ahead, the museum is working with scenographers from Berlin to develop a new permanent exhibition that will explore the future of sepulchral culture. sepulkralmuseum.de
‘Lucy in the Field with Flowers,’ artist unknown. Rescued from roadside trash in Boston, 1993. Photo courtesy Museum of Bad Art.
Museum of Bad Art
Boston, Massachusetts
There’s a place for everyone, and that rings true for artists on display at Boston’s Museum of Bad Art, which is dedicated to collecting, exhibiting and celebrating works that would normally be shunned by more traditional art museums. The museum’s tagline, “Art too bad to be ignored,” summarizes its collection, which includes themed galleries such as “Dopplehangers,” portraits that somewhat resemble famous folks like a melting Jacqueline Kennedy, and “In the Nood,” a grouping of nude portraits that rather loosely resemble the human form. MOBA’s public gallery is located within the Dorchester Brewing Co., so you can enjoy a libation before taking in the best of the worst in the visual arts. museumofbadart.org
ANDREW NODELL is a contributor to Intelligent Collector.