Mark Your Calendars—LA’s Museum of Broken Relationships Has an Opening Date

Objects range from furry handcuffs to a toaster.

Photo courtesy Museum of Broken Relationships.

People do all sorts of things to get over relationships, from excessive drinking to sleeping around to, if you’re Elizabeth Gilbert, traveling the world and writing a runaway bestselling memoir that becomes a movie starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem.

Not everyone can turn lemons into lemonade in such spectacular fashion, and the Museum of Broken Relationships has found a way for everyday people to mark the demise of their love affairs by donating a token of the relationship, along with an explanation of its significance.

A jilted lover wielded an ax. Photo courtesy Museum of Broken Relationships.

A jilted lover wielded an ax. Photo courtesy Museum of Broken Relationships.

Now, that museum, conceived in Croatia in 2006 and having traveled to 21 countries, has set an opening date for a venue on Hollywood Boulevard, reports Time Out. It’s coming to LA June 4 at 6751 Hollywood Boulevard, and will charge $18 admission.

The founders, Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić, are themselves former lovers. Vistica, speaking to the BBC in 2011, when the museum touched down in London, called it “a platform for people to be creative,” and said that she and Grubišić are constantly surprised by the kinds of donations people make.

Photo courtesy Museum of Broken Relationships.

Photo courtesy Museum of Broken Relationships.

The objects on display range from an ax that a woman had used to destroy her cheating husband’s furniture to a toaster that was the only thing left behind by a departing girlfriend.

The New York Times described the museum’s holdings as being “often cringe-inducing,” which, in this case, sounds like a positive. A writer for the London Sunday Times went so far as to call it “poignant, bewitching, intelligent, sad and, at times, very, very funny.”

A wedding dress. Photo courtesy Museum of Broken Relationships.

A wedding dress. Photo courtesy Museum of Broken Relationships.

“Sad objects are not necessarily bad things, and that’s the message the museum sends,” one of the founders told Time Out. “It’s full of hope and has a sense that life goes on.”


Follow Artnet News on Facebook:


Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.
Article topics