Samuel West was nine time zones from San Francisco when his phone started blowing up. Friends were sending links to a Standard story about the Museum of Failure, which is set to open as a pop-up March 21 on Fisherman’s Wharf. West was irate. Though he founded the Museum of Failure in 2017, he has nothing to do with the forthcoming iteration.
In fact, he alleges that Martin Biallas of SEE Global Entertainment, the Museum of Failure’s U.S. operator, stole the contents of the 150-item collection — a compendium of corporate blunders ranging from the Ford Edsel to Crystal Pepsi — from him.
“They just stole it, and they’re using it without my permission,” West said from Spain, where he lives. “I was like, ‘I’m not going to negotiate. I’m not going to reason with them,’” he said. “The actual physical items are mine. Like, give it back!”
Fuming, West got to work resurrecting the museum’s original website, posting a warning Tuesday that Biallas was “planning to open without permission.”
“Please do not buy tickets,” the homepage of museumoffailure.com now states, in a visual style almost indistinguishable from that of themuseumoffailure.net, the site the San Francisco pop-up has been promoting. “The entire exhibition can be seen for free here on our website.”
Weeks before it opens, the Museum of Failure is at war with itself.
A yearslong dispute
West claims he has been defrauded by SEE Global. The company disagrees and provided documentation to The Standard showing that it retains the museum’s international trademark. But West claims to be the rightful owner of both the museum and the core of its collection.
A Sacramento native, West opened the Museum of Failure in 2017 in Sweden. He acknowledges that he entered into an agreement with Biallas to allow SEE Global to turn the museum into a globe-trotting exhibition in exchange for a percentage of revenue. But he alleges that, apart from an initial $20,000 to cover expenses, Biallas stiffed him. West says he remains the rightful owner of the collection and its original website.
“We had a contract, and I would get a cut of ticket sales,” West said by phone. “But he never paid me, and he always had some excuse why he couldn’t.”
Biallas’ U.S. traveling museum has had runs in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Brooklyn over the years, and West attended the opening of each, he said. (A separate Museum of Failure exhibition, which West says he controls, travels separately in Europe.) But by the time the stateside iteration took up in 2023 in Washington, D.C., West had split from his former partner.
According to legal letters obtained by The Standard, West allegedly locked Biallas out of the museumoffailure.com website in the run-up to the D.C. opening, and the acrimony grew.
Now West says he no longer wishes to be paid but simply wants to prevent the museum from opening at Fisherman’s Wharf. “I don’t want to work with him,” West said of Biallas. “He’s an asshole, period. I don’t care how much money it is. It doesn’t matter to me. He’s destroying my brand. I hate him because he screwed me over.”
West is aware of how a soured partnership might look for an institution dedicated to chronicling high-profile flops. “The irony is not lost on me,” he said. “But they stole my show! I’m not going to go and drink Champagne [at the grand opening].”
SEE Global Entertainment casts West as a disgruntled individual with a messy financial life who, in a fit of pique, wants to relitigate a settled dispute. West hasn’t received his percentage of SEE Global’s revenue from the museum, according to company spokesperson David Perry, because he’s embroiled in bankruptcy, and the funds went directly to his creditors.
Perry forwarded a cease-and-desist letter SEE Global’s attorneys sent Tuesday to West, demanding that museumoffailure.com be taken down.
He contends that SEE Global had extended an olive branch to West as well. “In years past, we have welcomed him to all iterations of the Museum of Failure as a valued cheerleader with all due credit given,” Perry said by email. But now reconciliation is off the table.
Despite the drama, the Fisherman’s Wharf pop-up is moving forward. SEE Global has a long-term lease at 145 Jefferson St. and will open a Smurfs-themed project there concurrently with the Museum of Failure. Kaitlin Thresher, deputy director of the Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District, confirmed the plans.
“SEE Global is a legitimate operator,” Thresher said. “They’ve paid their rent. We’re really excited about them coming in.”
However, as of Wednesday afternoon, museumoffailure.com was still warning away prospective visitors. Like West, Perry noted the irony inherent in this now-public battle for the exhibition’s soul: “This individual’s own dispiriting saga would make it a perfect fit for the Museum of Failure.”