The Museum of Sex, whose flagship location opened its doors over 20 years ago in NYC, will expand to Miami with a new outpost on Saturday, December 2, 2023. Housed in a 32,000- square-foot converted warehouse in the Allapattah district and designed in collaboration with international design studio Snøhetta, the museum will feature three large exhibition galleries, retail space, and a bar. Opening on the eve of Miami Art Week, the museum’s debut exhibitions will include Hajime Sorayama: Desire Machines and Modern Sex: 100 Years of Design and Decency.
Founded in 2002, the Museum of Sex has launched over 40 exhibitions committed to preserving, presenting, and celebrating the cultural significance of human sexuality. Its exhibitions and programs span genres that reflect the vibrant complexity of human sexuality and human history, balancing the serious and the playful. The Museum of Sex is devoted to bringing the best of current scholarship to the widest possible audiences and is committed to encouraging public awareness, discourse, and engagement.
Daniel Gluck, Executive Director and Founder of Museum of Sex, comments: “We are excited to reach this major milestone in our history and to bring our vision to the vibrant cultural landscape of Miami. Our inaugural programming perfectly embodies our ambitions to be a thought-provoking forum around sex and sexuality, and to bring a unique, beloved, and critically acclaimed cultural offering to Miami.”
Ariel Plotek, Chief Curator of Museum of Sex, adds: “This is the beginning of something very big, for the Museum and for Miami. Not only are we more than doubling our exhibition space, we’re also exponentially expanding our reach, both in terms of audience and impact. Miami has positioned itself as a world-class destination for the arts, and the Museum of Sex will add its own spectacular take on the past, present, and future of sexuality to this heady mix.”
Hajime Sorayama: Desire Machines marks the Japanese artist and illustrator’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States. In Hajime Sorayama: Desire Machines, the artist explores the beauty and eroticism of human bodies and machines through his signature hyperrealist aesthetic. The exhibition will feature four of Sorayama’s large-scale “sexy robot” sculptures as well as 20 never-before-seen erotic paintings. Expanding beyond the gallery spaces, a new, site-specific and other-worldly triptych by Sorayama, which measures 14-feet-high, will be displayed in Super Funland. Hajime Sorayama: Desire Machines is organized with Nanzuka Gallery in Tokyo, which will also present works by Sorayama at Art Basel Miami Beach.
Modern Sex: 100 Years of Design and Decency surveys the cultural debates and societal impact of restriction on the design, marketing, and distribution of sexual health products from the 1920s until today. Guiding visitors through each decade, the exhibition showcases how popular culture, discourse, packaging, and advertisements around sexual health have been debated, experimented with, and controlled for 100 years. Curated in collaboration with Éva Goicochea, Founder of maude, a modern sexual wellness company, and actress Dakota Johnson, Co-Creative Director of maude, Modern Sex: 100 Years of Design and Decency examines the sexual expression and radicality in the roaring twenties; danger and regulation as defined by the Second World War; counterculture and freedom as seen in the 1960s and 1970s; and increasingly open discourse in the decades that followed through today. The pioneering exhibition will feature over 500 artifacts, historical media, and medical objects. Modern Sex: 100 Years of Design and Decency is co-sponsored by maude, KY, and Durex.
Inspired by the decadent carnal origins of the carnival dating back to the Roman Bacchanal, Super Funland: Journey into the Erotic Carnival is a permanent, immersive installation that has been entertaining visitors in NYC since its launch in 2019. The multi-layered iteration in Miami presents an immersive “carnival fairground” on an even grander scale with 20 dazzling amusements and games that play on sexual thrills, humor, and decadence, including four new additions such as The Devil’s Teacup and Merlandia.
Acting as a gateway to the immersive installation, a colossal woman looms over the space with visitors passing through her legs to enter the museum’s main experiential space. An homage to the 1950s film, “Attack of the 50-foot Woman,” the sculpture embraces the full scale of the museum’s new space. Sitting opposite Attack of the 50’ Woman, Merlandia marks a one-of-a-kind experience exclusive to the Miami museum, which is comprised of a 40-foot-wide rococo-style mermaid tank and performance space. Inspired by Salvador Dali’s 1939 Dream of Venus, the attraction integrates both stage and water performance through choreography by Katherine Crockett, former lead Martha Graham Dancer and Queen of the Night star, and takes inspiration from a 19th century tableau vivant as a living sculpture.
Fueled by Miami’s vibrant arts community and unique position as a cultural epicenter, the Museum of Sex’s new outpost will offer Miami locals and visitors a destination unlike any other they have been offered before.
