10 OctOber 2-8, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | The Miami Museum of Sex debuts an exhibition of censored art. BY SHAWN MACOMBER T here are collectors and cura- tors of erotic art, and then there are collectors and cura- tors of erotic art with a seven- foot pink dildo torpedo by the artist Alesha Fiandaca in their bedroom, a living room dedicated to gay art stylist and pioneer Tom of Finland, and a revolving screen of Playboy pinups in their bathroom. Beth Rudin DeWoody is firmly — not to mention solely — in the latter camp. “I’ve always been drawn to the erotic in art because it can be playful and deviant,” says DeWoody, who acquired the first drawing of her wild and sprawling eponymous collection in 1969 at the tender age of 17. “We all like to feel a bit naughty. If we’re not creating the work, we take pleasure in viewing it — even if we don’t always admit it.” It’s a temptation that will be all the easier to indulge when Allapattah’s Museum of Sex hosts “Hard Art: Unruly Selections from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection” beginning Friday, October 17. The exhibition, on view through May 2026, encompasses a “wide range of media spanning from the 1930s to the present, including sculptures, paintings, collages, photography, and interactive instal- lations” to “reframe sexuality in both playful and confrontational ways, with a focus on art- ists and content historically censored.” For the museum — which opened to the public last fall as a satellite of the New York City Museum of Sex, itself open since 2002 — early exhibitions have focused on the future (Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama’s solo show “Desire Machines,” which explores “intimacy, exhibitionism, and desire in the age of AI”) and the historical (“Modern Health: 100 Years of Design and Decency,” exploring “how the classification of health and the medicalization of intimacy...have transformed over time”). The DeWoody exhibition will mark its first time working with one of America’s most im- portant contemporary art collections. “I was aware that she has one of the largest contemporary art collections in the world that included a lot of playful, erotic, daring art about sex with much pride — which is why we wanted to work with her,” museum managing director Tam Gryn, who previously oversaw cultural programming at the Moore, tells New Times. “Hard Art,” however, exceeded even these great expectations: “It’s bold, hilarious, important, beautiful…She’s ahead of her time and unpredictable. I admire the way she has been devoted to collecting work from erotic perspectives no one else has.” Maynard Monrow, a curator for the De- Woody collection and an impressive modern artist in his own right, smiles as Gryn says this, then adds: “When oth- ers shy away, Beth zeroes in. She’s just so supportive of challenging work. Some of it is beyond adventur- ous, even.” Monrow describes DeWoody as “the re- luctant influencer.” She’s always present in what he calls “the play- ground of pleasure, the erotic arena.” She’s always collecting; always support- ing emerging galleries and art- ists. DeWoody, for example, acquired pieces by Glenn Ligon, Joan Semmel, and Judith Bernstein early. But she’s never sought the spotlight or undue credit for herself. For her, it remains about champion- ing work few others champion. “Beth is a very intuitive collector,” says Laura Dvorkin, Monrow’s co-curator both for this show and at the DeWoody collection- centered Bunker Artspace in West Palm Beach. “She often will acquire a work within a few minutes just based on looking at it, re- sponding to it, and really not caring what anyone else is saying at that moment.” DeWoody has become something of a Keeper of the Erotic Flame through ever- changing social mores, perspectives, cultural evolutions, and political persecutions. After all, though the mode — or, in the current parlance, algorithm — may change, censorship never goes away — not really. And, so, having a collec- tor who was active when, say, Betty Tompkins was being censored in the 1970s and Robert Map- plethorpe was being can- celed in the 1980s, but who also is active when there’s not one, but two, Museums of Sex and the oppressional threat matrix has shifted, of- fers invaluable institutional knowledge. “A lot of the works in the exhibition do have a political context,” Dvorkin says. “The artists are exploring the erotic, but often through that they’re also exploring larger societal themes — censorship; freedom of sexuality across the spectrum; social isolation. And the breadth of Beth’s collecting, and the fact that she does go in for underrepresented and challenging work, allows you to see the cultural arc. There are not many collectors who could put to- gether a contemporary exhibition of art like this with all these important undertones.” “It’s so relevant yet also approachable to the general public in a way many contempo- rary art collections just are not,” Gryn adds. “That’s important to us as a museum…I just think there’s so much to be said for Beth’s eye — it’s almost unprecedented.” It’s true. DeWoody is far out ahead of both the contemporary market and popular culture in such an undeniable way. But not in the sense that she’s pushing anyone away. There is authority on display in “Hard Art,” yes. There is boldness, sure. But there is also hu- mor and a generosity of spirit and what Dwor- kin appropriately dubs “a playful, connective quality” and a lot of wink-wink, nudge- nudges. It’s extraordinarily refreshing and wonderful and rare to see a gallery show pull all of that together. “The Museum of Sex is daring, unbridled, and just plain fun, which is exactly why I love it,” DeWoody says. “I couldn’t be hap- pier about this collabo- ration and the chance to share a part of my collection that rarely gets seen.” Oh, and what about that seven-foot pink dildo torpedo? Is it in the show? You bet your naughtiness- loving backside it is. “Hard Art: Unruly Selections from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection.” Opening Friday, October 17, at the Museum of Sex, 2200 NW 24th Ave., Miami; 786-206-9210; museumofsex. com. Admission costs $24 to $30. Delia Brown, An Elegant Woman in her Library, 2022 COMING ATTRACTIONS Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody / Courtesy of the artist “I just think there’s so much to be said for Beth’s eye — it’s almost unprecedented.”
