The Museum of Fred

A collection of art culled from thrift stores, The Museum of Fred was created by Fred Beshid around 2000. Despite getting a fair amount of press, the museum does not seem to have been actively updated in years. There is a healthy anti-elitist, egalitarian bent to Beshid's brief introduction (which has faith that the internet could free museums from 'wealthy patrons' and the 'blue-chip artists' that they favor), but I think the real interest here is the specificity of selecting art from thrift stores, and the strange aesthetic that those works seem to share.

1. Selection Decisions
Little is written about how these works were chosen, but we do know that the works were 'donated to thrift stores' where Beshid purchased them. He doesn't mention where, regionally, they were purchased, or when he found them. They do tend to share a palette and style, which could be representative of Beshid's aesthetic biases, a certain period or region that he came upon most frequently, or characteristics similar to hobbyist painting. The museum is split into six categories based on the subject of the paintings, which may simply be for the website itself, or it may be that Beshid only buys within these categories.

2. Metadata
There is no metadata. Absolutely none. It's the most frustrating thing bout the site. Even if there were no signatures or dates (and it's clear from some of the images that there are), the date and place of purchase could be given, dimensions, other physical descriptions, etc.

3. Object Characteristics
The images themselves are offered as small thumbnails in a sort of gallery view, and when clicked, they open as a larger image in a separate window. This largest size is still too small to really appreciate, and the photos themselves should be leveled, they all seem a bit dull and dark.

4. Audience
Beshid obviously wants as broad an audience as possible. He envisions digital museums as being able to fill a gap left by institutional collections, so presumably is courting the common museum-goer, though I imagine he also sees a collection of art created by what he calls 'ordinary people' as being of more interest to 'ordinary people' than traditional museum fare.