The Museum of Sex Miami will officially open its doors in late January 2024 after delays prevented a hard opening in time for Art Basel Miami Beach. The museum had initially hoped to welcome guests in November.
Museum founder Daniel Gluck told Artnet News during a walk-through of the site, which is still under construction, that the Museum of Sex had issues with the utility company Florida Power & Light. He said there are a few other inspection procedures that need to be completed, and in the meantime, the parking lot is undergoing renovations. The box office should be completed within the week.
The museum did do a soft opening, briefly showing works by Hajime Sorayama, which have been placed in storage for their protection until construction is complete. The Sorayama show is expected to be on view for a year. The museum has acquired one of the works, with the rest coming from loans. (As for future acquisitions, Gluck said the museum has its eye on a Robert Mapplethorpe work.)
As Gluck walked us through the museum’s new location, he touted an exhibition that came as a collaboration with Maude, a sex toy design company created by Eva Goicochea and Dakota Johnson. The show, “Modern Sex, 100 Years Of Design And Decency,” set to open in January 2024, will present a history of sexual product development ranging from sex toys to medical devices.
The first-floor exhibition space will likely rotate every six months. “We already got a bunch lined up,” Gluck said of future shows, revealing one idea in the works is “a show that actually celebrates masculinity.” Others include an exhibition on sex and psychedelics and another on sex in the Weimar Republic.
A Hajime Sorayama sculpture inside the Museum of Sex in Miami, with another in the background wrapped for its protection as the institution completes construction. Photo by Adam Schrader.
The second-story gallery space will open with the Sorayama retrospective. Gluck said the museum always wanted to do a show of Sorayama’s work and were thrilled it coincided with the opening of the Miami location, calling it an “obvious and great fit.”
And from there, guests are snaked to Super Fun Land, the main attraction of the museum with more of a theme-park-like experience than an educational one. There, a 180-degree theater playing a film on the history of sex opens the space that includes an ASMR experience (tentatively titled ClimbX), a kaleidoscopic tunnel, and a video art installation that visitors can walk through. Also featured is what Gluck called an “homage to Disney,” inspired by the “amazing erotic work” created by Disney artists.
A section inspired by Disney’s ties to porn industry at the Museum of Sex in Miami. Photo by Adam Schrader.
To enter the Super Fun Land game room, guests must walk between the legs of a giant woman whose genitals can be seen from below, glowing and screaming like Godzilla. Gluck said the massive artwork was inspired by the 1958 science-fiction horror film Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, whose image is referenced by certain fetishists.
“We might do a collaboration with a camming company and have a live woman that you can talk to and interact with,” he said.
The game room includes, among other things, Glory Stall, a sort of whack-a-mole experience where guests have to tug clown penises that pop up; Siren, where visitors stick their hands into the machine and “bring the siren to pleasure” for her to dispense a love potion, a vial of essentially Kool-Aid and CBD; and the Sizemologist, which gives guests an “official” size of their penis after cupping the guest’s personal area. If it determines you are “well hung,” the machine announces it to the room.
The game Porn-o-Matic creates a low-quality “deepfake” superimposing guests’ faces into 1980s porn films. The museum had previously staged the Porn-o-Matic experience in New York three years ago, before the rise of artificial intelligence.
The Museum of Sex in Miami features a sculpture of a giant woman inspired by 1950s movies. Photo by Adam Schrader.
The biggest attraction that will be unique to the Museum of Sex Miami is a mermaid tank, an underwater performance stage inspired by Salvador Dali’s Dream of Venus. “We are collaborating with Katherine Crockett—a principal dancer at Martha Graham—as lead choreographer,” Gluck said.
The final major attraction of the museum is the Devil’s Teacup, based on a German Oktoberfest game called Teufelsrad with a twist.
The Sizemologist game at the Museum of Sex location in Miami. Photo by Adam Schrader.
Comparing the museum’s Miami and New York locations, Gluck said: “We probably have 60 to 70 percent similar experience, although they’ve been upgraded, and then about 40 percent of new attractions. I would say New York is the beta and this is the release.”
Now that the Miami location is nearing completion, Gluck is looking to expand to Tokyo, London, and maybe even Dallas. Being a private museum, he added, “we can do whatever we want” without having to appease a board of directors, and that curators are “blown away” by that freedom.
And as for any possible risks for opening in Florida, Gluck said he’s “not really worried about it.”
“We may have a protest or two, but we’re not taking tax dollars,” he explained. “There are much more wilder things happening in Florida than what we’re doing. This is not a place you’re going to take a seven-year-old. It’s for adults and we don’t allow anyone under the age of 18 anyway.”
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