The Museum of Bad Gifts Is a Celebration of Outlandish Objects, From Ceramic Clowns to Cat Nail Clippings

An eclectic collection of items akin to the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is on display at a small gallery in Canada. But unlike the 1964 television special’s downtrodden playthings, which eager girls and boys eventually welcome on Christmas morning, these items are gifts that have already been given—and rejected.

At “The Museum of Bad Gifts,” a weeklong installation at Toronto’s Northern Contemporary Gallery, doomed presents are mounted on the wall like pieces of fine art for visitors to puzzle over. Highlights include a framed fragment of cat food packaging, a stolen hotel bathrobe, a gingerbread man made of astroturf, a carafe made from a cow’s hoof, a “Muppet Calendar” CD-ROM and a drinking glass adorned with the words “wine is win with an ‘e’ on the end!”

“Bad gifts are a universal experience,” Shari Kasman, one of the exhibition’s curators, tells the Toronto Star’s Abby O’Brien. “Everywhere around the world, people are receiving bad gifts, whether given out of obligation or misjudgment.”

Kasman and her co-curators—artists Stephanie Avery, Martin Reis and Sean Martindale—settled on the idea while brainstorming ways to use the gallery space during the period between Christmas and New Year’s, when loved ones the world over are grappling with gifts they don’t want.

Ahead of the show, the gallery put out a call for submissions, explaining that the definition of a bad gift is “completely subjective” and that “all bad gifts should be celebrated equally.” As Kasman tells CBC News’ Michael Smee, “One person’s bad gift is another person’s gem.”

Kasman says that organizing the show came with unique challenges, and participants had their own moral quandaries to contend with: What if a gift-giver has since died? What if they’re alive and they see their item in the gallery? But the show is billed as a salute to bad gifts, rather than a condemnation of them.

“Be it given out of obligation, wild misjudgments in character or pure apathy, bad gifts hold a special place in our hearts and in our homes,” writes the gallery on the exhibition website. “We feel compelled to keep these gifts, even though we don’t want, like or need them. The Museum of Bad Gifts will put bad gifts in center stage as we celebrate their glorious awkwardness, the chaos of holiday consumption and the rituals of giving/receiving.”

The items are displayed alongside wall text descriptions written by the recipients, so museumgoers can understand the context in which each transaction occurred. One participant accidentally spritzed pepper spray in her face after receiving it as a gift from her mother; the offending tube is in a Ziploc bag on the wall. Another explained that “my bestie in England and I like to send each other quirky gifts, [but] this bag of what I think are cat nails was perhaps a little too quirky for me.” One woman wrote that she received a cookbook called Solo Chef written for “widows and recently divorced dads” on her 29th birthday.

“It had come from a [discount] bin,” Kasman tells the Toronto Star. “It contains such recipes as ‘Meatloaf for One.’”

Some of the gifts on display are inoffensive, like a “preppy cheetah print phone purse” given to someone who “doesn’t really care for typical girly things.” Context appears to matter a lot with such items, which are often appreciated when exchanged between acquaintances. But what about when they come from close friends or relatives?

Eva Stachniak, who visited the show, is a local writer who loves literature, but she’s been given generic texts that come with an air of, “Oh, any book will do,” as she tells Toronto Today’s Gabe Oatley. “It’s the sadness that comes from the fact that someone you thought knew you really has no idea who you are.”

But the bad gifts themselves are only one section of the show. At the wall of bad gift drawings, visitors are instructed to draw and describe the worst items they’ve received, including a “ceramic clown” and “the doll I don’t like.” They can also add their own bad gifts to a “collaborative bad gift sculpture” or “reimagine” them using ribbons, tape and other crafts supplies.

“There are bad gifts that are so bad they’re good,” says sculptor Andy Fischer. “Those are the ones I enjoy the most.” As CBC News reports, Fischer “reimagined” a Cabbage Patch doll gifted by a friend who constructed it out of “freakish found parts.”

Admission is free, but like a traditional gallery show, some of the items—including the bag of cat nails—are up for auction, according to Global News’ Lexy Benedict. Proceeds will go to the Toronto-based Daily Bread Food Bank.

“The Museum of Bad Gifts” is on view at the Northern Contemporary Gallery in Toronto through January 5, 2025.

Ellen Wexler | | READ MORE

Ellen Wexler is Smithsonian magazine’s assistant digital editor, humanities.