The MASS MOCA (North Adams). Set in a 160 year old mill complex, the “art” ranges from bizarre to just plain stupid! I saw nothing I recognized as art-one “work” was a collection of 55 gallon steel drums, with an old parachute draped on top. This is art? It looks like most of their stuff was collected from yard sales and local dumps!
But, it is tempered by the fact that they have a decent cafeteria!
one day I’m going to get around to visiting the museum of edible oils in Israel.
Or maybe not.
Salvador Dali. The Dali museum in Paris is chock-full of long-legged elephants.
You missed nothing matey.
For a real bone numbing experience visit the bottle museum also in Keswick.
It’s full of …you guessed it
You’re kidding. I loved that museum. I only had ~8 hours in wellington and was annoyed when I had to leave.
The Royal Victorian Wax Museum in Victoria is kind of dull. Even the torture chamber.
On the other hand, if you’re ever in Haines, Alaska - the Hammer Museum is wonderful. I walked in because I was trained to go into places with the word “museum” in their titles. About 15 minutes later, I was fascinated by all the things you could hammer, the ways you could hammer them, and infinite variations on types of hammers. Very cool place.
I was all set to make a smartass remark, but that does look cool.
I found the Boeing Museum of Flight to be dull. It’s just not my thing, I guess.
I went with my family a couple of times as a teenager, and I was pretty much bored out of my skull for 3/4 of the time. However, I think I’d enjoy it more now. I’m more interested in history, and I wouldn’t have to be with my family!
I’m not much of a museum-goer these days, though, still. My husband is the type who has to read every single word of everything and give each display a sufficiently long stare. It takes him about three times as long as me to get through a room, so I either end up sitting around waiting for him or getting way ahead and losing him for the whole day.
It’s a great phrase for pissing off Wellingtonians.*
*Disclaimer: I really like Wellington, and always have fun down there. Just not in their museum.
A close second for most boring museum, I found, is the Australian Museum. I think with that one I expected to get more of a feel of what Australia’s about, as you certainly do for Auckland and NZ in visiting the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Apart from an exhibition at the time on Aborigine rights, I was disappointed. Seemed very much like same ol’, same ol’.
The Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art in Elmhurst, Illinois failed to turn me on to lapidary art. Of course that was probably have been an uphill battle.
The Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh PA.
“Oh look there’s a boring picture, oh look there it is again, oh look the entire floor is the same picture repeated over and over again with slight variations.”
Honestly after about three floors of that (the museum has six), I was close to getting out my nail clipper and trying to cut through my wrists with it. Not because I am suicidal, but because of the relatively greater entertainment value.
When I die. If I find myself at the gates of Hell, Old Scratch himself will look at my card, note that I had gone to the Warhol Museum, and declare that I have done my time.Yeah, try going to it a half dozen times. My kids liked going there because there’s a kiddie “museum” area where you can climb on pyramids, a boat, etc.
The first time I went there I though “huh, this isn’t a museum?” “It’s re-creation of certain eras in Canada’s history with a few limited genuine artifacts sprinkled around. But it ain’t a museum.”
I think they’ve added more and more of the “genuine artifacts” as the museum has matured – the current facility opened in 1989 – but it is boring isn’t it.
The Imax theatre inside is phenomenal though.
I smell a conspiracy! No, wait, that’s just the Quiznos.
Yes, it has rather gone downhill in recent years. There have been management upheavals and infighting among the staff about how best to display the collection, future direction etc. It’s basically been in the news for all the wrong reasons e.g. a few years ago staff were accused of stealing items from the collection.
The better option in Sydney is the Powerhouse Museum.
Now, I must disagree. We visited it a few years ago and loved it. The kids got a kick out of the mylar-balloon room. We liked all the art and his life story, and a display they had on Warhol doing an album cover for the Rolling Stones (“Sticky Fingers,” maybe?). Included was a letter from Mick Jagger to Warhol that said, “Do whatever you want. You’ll be hearing from our lawyer shortly; he’s a very stuffy and uncool guy, so feel free to ignore whatever he says.” 
Not necessarily a museum but the Rothko Chapel as well as the Cy Twombly Galley I found extremely boring and not my cup of tea. I had to take my brother-in-law, who is a huge fan of both, there when they first visited me. The Rosewell UFO Museuem already mentioned was also extremely boring. I actually remember going to 2 different museums in Rosewell and both were quite boring.
Hijacking my own thread…but has anyone ever visited the Army Medical Museum (Washington DC)? Its got all kinds of gorey crap-including the intestine of a soldier who died of constipation! (He should have used some cleansing stuff).
Anyway, I remember walking through this little horror-anyone ever been?
No, but the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia is certainly a top contender for “most disgusting” distinction.
Well, there are boring museums and then there are boring museums. For instance, I’ll reasonably happily slog through some tedious local history museum knowing from experience that you’ll occasionally stumble across something neat you would never have discovered any other way.
Then there are places that are intrinsically tedious, but ripe for having the piss taken out of them. A friend and myself once spent an entertaining hour or so going round the Scholl Museum in Chicago. Yep, a museum about bunions. The sheer pointlessness of running a museum on the subject is largely what we found funny.
Sort of in the same category was the Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco. I don’t drink the stuff and we were only going round it having realised that there’s absolutely nothing else of any interest whatsoever to see in the town. The stuff of despiration, though no doubt interesting to some people.
Whereas the Conspiracy Museum was plain creepy. And mainly about UFOs and the Lincoln assassination rather than JFK. Little more than photocopied articles pinned to the wall, overseen by a seemingly at least slightly unhinged attendent.
But in a category of its own was the museum in the New Brighton Fort on Merseyside when I visited it in the mid-nineties. The fort itself is interesting. But part of the interior had been taken over by the local Warplane Wreck Investigation Group as their WWII museum. Now I’ve a brother who’s been active in the hobby and I’ve even occasionally hiked up Scottish mountains with him to look for wrecks, so it’s not as if I’ve no insight into their interests. But it was essentially an attempt to tell the drama of the Second World War via odds and sods of rusted twisted metal shards. And a few lumps of concrete that apparently came from the sites of various old WWII airfields in the area. The curatorial apparatus consisted of a handful of Airfix models and labels done with one of those old rotary tape stamper devices. Plus a poster from a magazine.
The fort seems to have changed owners since then, so I’ve no idea whether the museum staggers on in that form.