Inspiring a Different Kind of Happiness

My new painting, Winter Dreams; more about this below

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​“The purpose of art,” said Picasso, “is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” It doesn’t always have to be good art, either. Sometimes a work of art is so transcendently awful it electrifies our senses, whacks our funny bones, and gives our souls that brisk spring cleaning we didn’t even realize we needed.
 
Take Lucy in the Field with Flowers.

Lucy in the Field with Flowers

​I know, right? Absolutely ghastly on every level. I apologize for inflicting it on your eyeballs, but I am illustrating a point here. Back in 1993, one trash collection day in a Boston suburb, antiques dealer Scott Wilson spotted Lucy among curbside bins and picked her up, thinking he could sell the frame if he discarded the painting.
 
“You can’t do that!” objected his pal Jerry Reilly. “That’s so bad, it’s good.”
 
Reilly took the painting home and with a small group of friends began collecting other "disasterpieces." Eventually they threw a party jokingly called “The Opening of the Museum of Bad Art.” And the rest, as they say, is art history.

MOBA in its current location, the taproom of the Dorchester Brewery Company, Dorchester, Massachusetts, USA

​Today the Museum of Bad Art owns 1000 works, each worse than the last, with a few dozen of the most dreadful on display in its current location, the Dorchester Brewing Company just outside of Boston. Occasionally road shows and international exhibitions are organized, but sadly, so far the collection hasn't made it to Seville. I keep hoping.
 
How well has MOBA managed to preserve the low standards set by Lucy? You be the judge. Brace yourself. You might want to remove your eyeglasses and take a step back. OK, ready? Here goes. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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Little is known about most pieces, so titles and backstories are largely imaginary. Sunday on the Pot with George was a take-off on Sunday in the Park with George, a musical about Georges Seurat's painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The description suggests the subject is sitting on a chamber pot, inspiring one visitor to write in the comment book:

"Someone had slipped into the bathroom as I took in this painting and began peeing loudly into a toilet. The reverberating sound of urine splashing while viewing George brought the painting to life, and when the denouement of the flush sounded, I wept." You don’t get that kind of experience at the Louvre or the Met!

Truly terrible art may make us wince, but just as with more respected works, it can fire our imaginations and stir up emotions. Who can resist the come-hither look of Ferret in a Brothel?

​Research shows that looking at powerful art — good, bad, or perplexing — stimulates our brains and makes them more supple. “When you observe a profound piece of art you are potentially firing the same neurons as the artist did when they created it,” says art activist Jacob Devaney, “thus making new neural pathways and stimulating a state of inspiration.”
 
This is why I love going to downtown Seville’s Pan y Circo (Bread and Circus), a three-story art installation which also happens to be an outstanding restaurant. It’s the brainchild of artist Cristina Galeote, whose big, bold, wonderful paintings dazzle the eye throughout the space and play off other artists’ work, vintage memorabilia, and kooky knickknacks. The visual stimulation is so strong that while I’m there I find my conversations growing livelier and my brain buzzing with ideas for new projects.

Cristina Galeote's work Caballo (Horse)

​I know what you’re thinking: “Sure, stimulating our brains is great, but what about our tastebuds? Our stomachs? Our post-prandial haze of goodwill?”
 
I am pleased to report the eclectic fare is as much fun as the circus atmosphere. Although we’d dined there many times, Rich and I felt we owed it to my readers to evaluate the food in an official capacity, so we lunched there last Thursday.

​To awaken our palates and place our interiors on high alert, the restaurant provided a complimentary dish of creamy hummus accompanied by homemade bread.

Hummus topped with paprika, pine nuts, and raisins

​Next came vegetable gyozas, the Chinese potstickers that have become the darling of Andalucía foodies. Legend has it jiaozi (餃子) were invented 2000 years ago to be placed over frostbitten ears, but some naysayers doubt the medical efficacy of this treatment.

Vegetable gyozas

​We concluded the meal with a Moroccan pastilla, a delightful pie combining savory and sweet flavors in a delicate, flaky crust dusted with cinnamon. Created here in Andalucía a millennia ago, it was originally pigeon pie, but now, in a nod to modern sensibilities, it’s made with chicken.  “Or at least, that’s what they tell you,” Spanish friends say with a wink.

Moroccan pastilla

​As usual, I took time between courses to roam from floor to floor, checking out the latest acquisitions to see if I wanted to take anything home. Absolutely everything in the restaurant is for sale, from $10 plates to Galeote’s major works costing upwards of $8,500.
 
So far I’ve never acquired anything there except good food and inspiration for my own artistic endeavors. A year ago, Rich and I dined in front of one of Galeote’s major works.

Pan y Circo, December 2022

​The large scale felt exhilarating, and this winter I finally found the time, a smaller but still sizable canvas (40 x 40”), and an inspiring subject: the coziness of snuggling into a warm bed with a good book on a cold night. This weekend I finished painting Winter Dreams, and Rich and I celebrated with a long Sunday lunch in my studio.

My studio (also a dining room and guest room as needed)

OK, it's not the Mona Lisa, but at least it’s not the Mana Lisa; I feel there’s a fairly good chance Winter Dreams won’t end its days on MOBA's walls. Although from what I read, plenty of artists actually donate their work to the museum, no doubt for the fun of bringing all their friends around to make snarky remarks. Contributions pour in from across the globe and from the local Trash Collectors Union as well.
 
On slow news days the press runs stories about MOBA, and nurse Susan Lawlor was idly perusing one when she saw a picture so unexpected she “snorted Coca-Cola from her nose in astonishment.” It was a portrait of her grandmother, Anna Lally Keane (1890 - 1968), now known in bad art circles as Lucy in a Field with Flowers. Lawlor’s mother commissioned the painting and gave it to her sister who, while dubious about its artistic merits, displayed it for years because hey, it was their mom.
 
Here it is again, in case your subconscious has already repressed all memory of Lucy.
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It never loses its punch, does it?

"The face is hauntingly hers, but everything else is so horribly wrong,” says Lawlor. “It looks like she only has one breast. I'm not sure what happened to her arms and legs, and I don't know where all the flowers and yellow sky came from."
 
And yet … more than half a century later, we’re still talking about this painting. It makes us feel something — if only a powerful urge to hurl it out the window. And that’s art fulfilling its purpose: springing up where we least expect it, startling a laugh out of us, sharpening our senses, and shaking the dust off our souls so we can see the world around us a little more clearly, as if we were looking at it for the first time.

Or as designer Anni Albers put it, "Art is something that makes you breathe with a different kind of happiness."

Pan y Circo, Calle Rivero 11, is a pleasant ten-minute stroll from the cathedral through the downtown shopping district.

​OUT TO LUNCH
This story is part of my ongoing series "Out to Lunch" about visiting offbeat places in the city and province of Seville, often by train, seeking cultural curiosities and great eats. (Learn more.)​

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