AROUND TOWN
PICTURE THIS
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JESSICA HOGARTH
You can get to know a city—its history, people, and peculiarities—by wandering its streets. Or its galleries. Each of Boston’s art museums offers something distinct.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Visiting the Isabella Stewart Gardner feels like walking through a mind as much as a museum. Modeled after a 15th century Venetian palace, its three floors contain over 16,000 objects—paintings, sculptures, correspondences, and textiles—that were the private collection of a Boston philanthropist, the museum’s namesake. In 1990, the Gardner was the target of the single largest property theft in the world, when 13 works of art were stolen. Though these frames still sit empty, the museum has no shortage of rare, storied, and eccentric art to explore.
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) This museum in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood is known for its stunning views of the water, which would seemingly rival the views within. But with an evolving collection of dynamic and relevant contemporary art, including Kusama’s Love Is Calling and Kjartansson’s The Visitors, the views within always win. Admission is free every Thursday from 5 to 9 PM—a college student’s dream! No two visits are the same, so come back often.
Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Founded in 1870 and home to the second largest collection of art in North America, the Museum of Fine Arts celebrates a special relationship with Tufts’ School of the Museum of Fine Arts. All Tufts students can visit the MFA free of charge and easily spend hours wandering through permanent and traveling exhibitions alike—from the art of Ancient Greece to the paintings of Monet. Our advice for a visit to the museum is counterintuitive: stay put. Find a bench in front of a work of art that piques your interest, and observe it for as long as your schedule allows.
Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) Tucked into the basement of the Somerville Theatre in nearby Davis Square, the Museum of Bad Art is what its name suggests—a museum (the world’s only!) dedicated to the preservation and celebration of “bad art in all its forms and in all its glory.” And while it’s fun to take a gander at unapologetically bad art and deem it as such, our favorite suggestion for a visit to the MOBA is to find a work of art and, against all odds, fall in love with it.
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