It’s been known for decades that Miami is a city with sex on the brain. Now a new exhibition is showing how a few talented locals have turned that obsession into art.
More than 30 local artists are exhibiting erotic art in “F*ck Art: Nature & Artifice,” now open at the Museum of Sex in Allapattah. The show is the third in a series of shows staged by the museum sourcing work from nearby communities; the first two were staged at the museum’s original branch in New York, making this the format’s debut at the Miami location which opened in 2024.
Tam Gryn, managing director at Miami’s Museum of Sex, says the show attempts to transmit the highly sexualized nature of life in the city.
A diversity in mediums may be a defining aspect of the show, ranging across the spectrum from physical to digital and interactive art. (Photo by Mateo SeZa)
“Everything in Miami is sexualized,” she says. “So I really wanted to show this wild side of Miami, which is not just a beautiful touristy beach (city), but this wild swamp that is uncontainable and uncontrollable, no matter what is happening in this country or in the world.”
A longtime presence in the local art scene, Gryn previously curated the Erotica Biennale in Miami Beach, a citywide festival dedicated to erotic and sexual art last held in 2024. She says that when she heard about the Museum of Sex opening in Miami she quickly sprang into action.
“I literally pursued them,” she says. “I was like, ‘I want to work here, I want to do shows here, I have 700 ideas. Listen to me, listen to me.’ Until they did.”
That same energy went into recruiting artists for the exhibition. Though plenty responded enthusiastically to an open call put out by the museum, others required some convincing.
A sculpture by Moises Sanabria, “Taste the Algorithm,” shown in the Museum of Sex’s exhibition “F*ck Art.” (Photo by Mateo SeZa/SeZa Studios)
“I definitely pushed some artists that I knew that were leaning towards speaking about these subjects, or that had work that could be interpreted in this or that way or that,” says Gryn.
“I know they had the potential to speak on these subjects through their work, and I like in any show that I curate to push the artist one way or another, whether it’s to create work that is more immersive, more participatory, not just visual, or to talk about subjects that are more sensitive, or just to give them an opportunity to work in a different medium, maybe that they haven’t worked before. And there’s a lot of that in this show.”
A diversity in mediums may be a defining aspect of the show, ranging across the spectrum from physical to digital and interactive art (Gryn did not directly conform or deny whether any artworks were AI generated but said some of the included artists “use AI in their process”). Painting, fabric, ceramic works, photography and video are just a few of the options. One artist even crafted a sculpture out of chocolate depicting a woman’s bottom half.
An installation focusing on strip club culture in the exhibition “F*ck Art” at the Museum of Sex. (Photo by Mateo SeZa/SeZa Studios)
A few artists found inspiration in Miami’s sex industries, such as its famous strip clubs. Fabric artist Cheryl Pope crafted a diptych of wool and cashmere tapestries depicting a group of pole dancers against a vibrant checkerboard-patterned backdrop. Pope, who applied for the open call, says the artworks came out of thinking about strip clubs as places that celebrate the human body in all shapes and forms.
“I feel like these strip clubs become kind of temples for the body,” she says. “We’re celebrating the body. We’re celebrating beauty. All different kinds of bodies, all different kinds of women, all different shapes, all different sizes.”
The Chicago-born artist, who divides her time between Chicago and Miami, also noted that these types of establishments are far more commonplace in Miami than in cities across the northern United States.
Fabric artworks by Cheryl Pope depict Miami’s strippers. (Mateo SeZa/SeZa Studios)
“I think one of the liberating things about being in Miami is that there wasn’t shame around it as an industry. I met friends who are like, ‘Oh I’m friends with this stripper, let’s go down to this club tonight and hang out.’”
Sarah Ferrer, meanwhile, commented on another facet of the sex industry that has found a haven in Miami, pornography. Recent years have seen the city become a headquarters for newer forms of porn content – Miami boasts the highest number of OnlyFans content creators per capita – as well as old, with Playboy announcing in 2025 it would move its headquarters to Miami Beach.
Ferrer’s piece “The Bang Bus,” meanwhile, focuses on a more idiosyncratic porn typology associated with the city, the eponymous web series published by Miami-based studio Bang Bros which features sex scenes shot in a moving vehicle. The piece is a ceramic replica of the “Bang Bus” complete with moveable parts and accessories such as a camera and a pair of chickens.
“I first heard about the Bang Bus in middle school, and I feel like that’s probably most people’s experience,” says Ferrer. “And I think about how present and prevalent sex culture is in Miami, and how it’s almost inevitable to be aware of it, even, and to grow up around it. So I wanted to make a piece that kind of talked about that.”
An interactive installation in the Museum of Sex’s “F*ck Art.” (Photo by Mateo SeZa/SeZa Studios)
Ferrer also responded to the open call, hoping to use the show as a chance to represent the city. She had visited the museum’s previous exhibition on the history of sexuality and was inspired to make a Miami-specific object that could be included.
“I was thinking of what I can make that can represent an artifact of Miami,” says Ferrer. “And as an artist, I grew up here, and I want to be able to talk about it.”
If you go:
WHAT: “F*ck Art: Nature & Artifice”
WHERE: Museum of Sex, 2200 NW 24th Ave., Miami
WHEN: 1 to 10 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday and Monday; 1 to midnight Friday and Saturday; closed Tuesday. Through May 2026.
COST: $29
INFORMATION: 786-206-9210 and museumofsex.com
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