Tucked into a residential block of Carroll Gardens, just past the BQE on Union Street, is what may be Brooklyn’s smallest — and strangest — art museum: the Salvator Mundi Museum of Art, a 45-square-foot exhibition built into sculptor Elliott Arkin’s front-door lobby. It’s open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and you don’t even need to step inside — the entire show is visible from the street through a panel in the door. The current exhibit is devoted to orbs, inspired by the crystal sphere in Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi, the badly damaged 16th-century painting that resurfaced at a New Orleans estate sale in 2005 and became the most expensive artwork ever sold at public auction in 2017. Arkin trademarked the phrase and turned the museum into a running joke about art, value, and ownership: past shows include “Salvator Barbie,” a tribute to the painting’s restorer, and a Halloween exhibit about the beetles that ate Renaissance paintings. If Arkin is home and free, he’ll often come down, open the museum further, and hand out free merch — including a pasta sauce declaring “The world’s most expensive work of art is now a great pasta sauce.” Ring the bell, or just stand on the sidewalk: you’re already inside the museum.
Brooklyn's Smallest Art History Museum Is Hidden in Plain Sight
The Salvator Mundi Museum of Art — a 45-square-foot exhibit in a Carroll Gardens front-door lobby, open 24/7 and visible from the street, born from the world's most expensive painting.