When Croatian artists Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić ended their romance in 2003, they were left with ordinary, seemingly insignificant items they’d shared that had meaning only to them. So they did what artists do: They turned them into art.

Along with pieces donated from friends’ failed love affairs, they toured their art show in 25 cities, and in 2010 the pair opened the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb. Last month, in the building that once housed the lingerie shop Frederick’s of Hollywood, a permanent American branch of the museum opened, offering 105 souvenirs of heartbreak.

“It's almost like we don't choose these things, they kind of choose us,” says museum director Alexis Hyde, “these totems that get organically created in these relationships."

Though the museum sits on the same block as less-than-elegant boutiques like Souvenir Land and Chateau Denim, it has all the understated trappings of a classic gallery. Stark white walls, polished concrete floors, recessed lighting. The air is cool and people whisper. It’s a far cry from the old Frederick’s days when lace-clad mannequins lined the floor, though it’s somehow appropriate.

“It's fitting, you know?” says Hyde. “I mean, that had to have been a place where relationships started and ended all the time, and this becomes kind of a repository of other people's stories that include some lingerie.”

But Hyde stresses that the museum’s dedication to relationships gone south is not confined to romance.

“It's not just exclusively romantic love. It can be anything. It can be family, it can be friends, it can be businesses, it can be geography. Broken relationships mean a lot of different things to different people.”

The multitude of “profoundly ordinary” objects on display were all donated anonymously and are accompanied by captions written by the brokenhearted donors, stories that bring these mundane things to life.

There's a coffeemaker from a woman whose ex-boyfriend’s only redeeming quality was cleaning it every day. And a Peter Pan plush toy a man bought at 25 to remind him to “keep the little boy inside awake.” Nearing 50, he writes, “The boy is lost to me.” There are half-used cologne bottles from a widow whose husband died of cancer. And a pair of fake breasts. Whoever molded them apparently had a very crude sense of anatomy. A husband asked his wife to wear them during sex. She left him.

Though the place is founded on breakups, it’s ironically become a dating hot spot.

“I think people come in sometimes as a joke on a first date,” Hyde says. “They kind of come in as like, ‘Oh, this is going to be ironic,’ and then they leave feeling very endeared to each other.”

According to Hyde, the museum has the same effect on long-term couples.

“Established relationships come in, a lot of married couples and people who've been dating for a long time and it's just a regular day. ‘Let’s go to a museum and get cultured,’ and then about a quarter of the way through it's hand-holding. And then a little bit further in it's locked arms, and then about three-quarters of the way through is when I've got pretzels and/or makeout spots going on. They leave and they're just all over each other physically.”

In March, the museum held a preview show at the Ace Hotel in downtown L.A. The place was packed, mainly, it seemed, with couples. Trevor Donn and Jose Cera were among them.

“I thought it was like a really cute fourth-date idea,” says Donn. “This is our fourth date, so time to bring him to the Museum of Broken Relationships. I got a lot of morbid satisfaction out of it, just watching them all crumble. This could be us!"

But for friends  Mike Burns and Katie Chaffey, the exhibit wasn't all fun.

“Her first reaction was, ‘That sounds depressing,’ ” says Burns.

And was it?

“Yeah,” agrees Chaffey. “We only made it through one exhibit because I think it's the combination of having the object and the story behind it that made it a little bit too emotionally intense for me, and I was like, 'OK, let's get a drink.' "

Since donations are anonymous, you don’t know who submitted what. You also don’t know when a donor might be standing next to you.

“I submitted a tie from a seven-year relationship that I used to sleep with,” says a young woman who has just toured the exhibit (and wants to remain anonymous). “I painted this tie, it was very symbolic and I felt like it was a noose, so then I had to let it go. Now it's going to live in the Museum of Broken Relationships. No longer tied to the tie.”

Though it’s a museum devoted to broken relationships, it’s also a tribute to the bond of heartbreak that links almost everyone.

“You go through these experiences and you feel so profoundly alone,” says Hyde, “and no one wants to talk to you about it anymore, no one's ever hurt this bad before in their life and you’ll never get back on the horse. Then you walk through here and you're like, ‘Oh no, I have so many friends.’ And they’re all over the world. And they’re all different ages and races and creeds and sexualities, and this is incredible, and we’re all in this together. It’s just so profoundly human."