An Ex Axe

February 12, 2015 3:28 PM

"I love you" – WHAT A LIE! LIES, DAMN LIES! Yes, it's like that when you are young, naïve and in love. And you don't realize your boyfriend started dating you just because he wanted to take you to bed! I got this teddy bear for Valentine's. He survived on top of my closet in a plastic bag, because it wasn’t him who hurt me, but the idiot who left him behind.

-- "I love you" Teddy bear
2002 Zagreb, Croatia

"I love you" Teddy bear is one of the exhibits at The Museum of Broken Relationships.

More from Collector's Weekly: Love Among the Ruins: Traveling Museum Excavates the Artifacts of Lost Relationships.

posted by Room 641-A (11 comments total)

One of the highlights of my trip to Croatia in October 2014 was visiting this museum. It's pretty small, with each object given its own pedestal or wall position, and descriptions in Croatian and English. (There are translated books for other languages as well). Every kind of token from a relationship is featured, from legal documents to a bass guitar.

I found it surprisingly touching, funny, and moving in various ways. One of the ones I really remember is a simple clothespin, and a woman's poem about her mother, who suffered a heart attack while hanging laundry.

Definitely worth checking out if you ever find yourself in Zagreb!
posted by wellvis at 4:47 PM on February 12, 2015

The axe story is kind of horrifying. I mean, I get your girlfriend left you after three weeks and that you didn't want to keep her furniture, but maybe you could just put it out on the curb or something and not just agree to take it and slowly demolish it over her holiday. Damn, if she wasn't convinced the new girl was better before she sure must have been after that performance.
posted by sciatrix at 4:49 PM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

The divorce day garden dwarf. He arrived in a new car. Arrogant, shallow and heartless. The dwarf was closing the gate that he had destroyed himself some time ago. At that moment it flew over to the windscreen of the new car, rebounded and landed on the asphalt surface. It was a long loop, drawing an arc of time – and this short long arc defined the end of love.

Wow.
posted by batfish at 5:06 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

"I love you" – WHAT A LIE! LIES, DAMN LIES! Yes, it's like that when you are young, naïve and in love. And you don't realize your boyfriend started dating you just because he wanted to take you to bed! I got this teddy bear for Valentine's. He survived on top of my closet in a plastic bag, because it wasn’t him who hurt me, but the idiot who left him behind.

I'm imagining this read out by Werner Herzog, or perhaps Slavoj Žižek.
posted by acb at 5:22 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I went with Christopher Walken.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 5:24 PM on February 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ready for Valentine's Day
posted by sidereal at 6:00 PM on February 12, 2015

The axe story is kind of horrifying.

But it's funny if you imagine the narrator speaking in a squeaky berlin accent, wearing a black turtleneck...

In the 14 days of her holiday, every day I axed one piece of her furniture. I kept the remains there, as an expression of my inner condition. The more her room filled with chopped furniture acquiring the look of my soul, the better I felt.

or maybe just kind of horrifying.
posted by ennui.bz at 6:15 PM on February 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Sounds like a fun date.

The axe story is kind of horrifying.

"My friends thought I needed to learn to let people in more... In the 14 days of her holiday, every day I axed one piece of her furniture. I kept the remains there, as an expression of my inner condition."

That's the one I thought should be narrated by Werner Herzog.
posted by atoxyl at 6:41 PM on February 12, 2015

I was here in Zagreb last month! It's the only museum that's ever made me cry, and very possibly the only museum that's made me laugh out loud. It's quite small but well-presented, and since they rotate the exhibits regularly you'll get to see something different every time.

If you never get the chance to visit or be visited by the exhibits - well, I'm an awful photographer even by smartphone standards, but here are some of my favorite stories. Please note that a few of these do mention child abuse, rape, and suicide.

A Stun Gun

In the Sunshine

Stiletto 1/2
Stiletto 2/2

Holy Water Hit and Run

50 Shades of Grey IRL

1 Day

30 Years

A Forum to Grieve

Over a Cliff

Disposing of the Evidence

I was nine years old

My Mother's Suicide Note

The Toaster of Vindication

Guestbook - Great Life Advice

Guestbook - Happy Ending?
posted by susoka at 7:06 PM on February 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

A very special museum. Everyone should go!
posted by CPAGirl at 9:14 AM on February 13, 2015

Apparently there is an exhibit from the Museum of Broken Relationships currently in San Francisco, running through the end of February at Root Division Gallery (info via Leah Garchik of SF Chronicle) The gallery website says it is on a world tour. The Museum's website tour page points to exhibits upcoming at the Yukon Arts Centre (opening March 2015) and Basel opening in April (and currently accepting donations.)
posted by larrybob at 11:31 AM on February 23, 2015