A Beasthood · The Lights
MoBA
Not grey. Oatmeal. I'll argue it till morning.
Their gift: The Likeness. A portrait made with a day of care stops a fading Beast going further, even one whose name is lost. The cost: It holds but can't bring back; quick likenesses hold no one.
About 500 Beasts call MoBA home.
The place
The Museum of Beast Arts wears its exhibition on the outside and changes shape each season. Linseed, wet plaster, a crowd's long "ohhh". Even the streetlights are somebody's thesis.
Their gift, and what it costs
The Likeness. Paint a fading Beast true and they fade no further while the portrait hangs, even one whose name is lost and can't be called. A portrait that holds takes a day of real care. The cost, MoBA's oldest grief: a portrait holds, it doesn't bring back. Only a name does that, so a friend letters each sitter's name on the back.
What they want, and what they fear
Want: work that outlasts everything. Fear: the blank wall.
People you might meet
- Corvin Hale (Sheep), critic, called the Blank Exhibition a fraud from the front row: "I saw a wall." Paz has painted Corvin smiling eleven times, and been asked eleven times to stop.
- Severine Dunleavy (Original), the Blank Exhibition's artist. Last week Severine opened a studio packed to the ceiling with four months' work, and let the doorway crowd argue about going in.
- Ama Mbatha (Raccoon), keeper of the Room, reads the Pale Books aloud to the portraits nightly, a page a face, and has begun inventing names for them. None of them hold: a faded Beast can't answer to a name it never had.
Neighbours and old business
- Beat Street: twins. It scores every opening, but refused the Blank Exhibition's.
- The Odeon: three painters, three portraits of the Understudy, three different balaclavas.
- Faded Heights wants MoBA's Grey Year paintings of the ridge, its old bright terraces, turned to the wall. MoBA refuses.
Books from MoBA
A Beast's Book is written from their holder's choices.
No Book from MoBA is open yet. A holder of a Beast from here can begin theirs in the game.
More about MoBA
Their scarThe Blank Exhibition (four months ago): MoBA's most respected artist took the Main Gallery for a month, drew a record crowd and hung…
The Blank Exhibition (four months ago): MoBA's most respected artist took the Main Gallery for a month, drew a record crowd and hung nothing. Half of MoBA calls it the bravest piece ever shown. The other half: the crowd clapped for nothing, the Mannequin's oldest sign.
Older: the Unnamed Room. In the Grey Year MoBA painted faded Beasts day and night, a day per face, too hurried to letter the backs. The portraits held.
What they argue aboutHandmade vs Big Idea: who fills the Main Gallery next.
Handmade vs Big Idea: who fills the Main Gallery next. Handmade want the hours to show, paint under the nails. Big Idea say the Blank Exhibition proved the idea is the work.
This seasonCritique Hall gives the Main Gallery to Handmade or Big Idea at the season's turn.
Critique Hall gives the Main Gallery to Handmade or Big Idea at the season's turn. This year fading Beasts queue on the Portrait Steps, and Big Idea's bid began as a hundred quick likenesses of them a night: lovely, and holding none of their sitters. The new bid: a hundred painters with a day each to give. Handmade's Paz Ilunga has started lending them brushes.
A customThe Lettering.
The Lettering. When a face in the Room is matched to a Grey Year name from the Pale Books, the Paste Wall's oldest layers or the Fire's roll, it's carried onto the Portrait Steps, lettered in front of everyone, and the Beastside calls the name. Every match brings out three Beasthoods, two spelling arguments and the Beastro's soup.
PlacesMain Gallery: empty since the Blank Exhibition.
- Main Gallery: empty since the Blank Exhibition.
- Critique Hall: reputations made and unmade.
- Portrait Steps: sit for a face.
- The Rotating Skin: the outer panels; land a piece there and the Beastside passes it.
What they think is going on"Everything not made is forgotten."
"Everything not made is forgotten." So MoBA titles everything, even a sandwich.