The Erotic Museum previewed some of its exhibits Wednesday night at an invite-only reception in anticipation of its official opening this fall.
The museum is hosted in a building that was originally built in 1911 and at one time was inhabited by a garter company, giving it a historical connection to sexuality beyond even the wide array of exhibits that will be displayed when the museum opens in October. The building, which is located a block from the Kodak Theatre, is currently undergoing renovations designed to bring back the original look.
With a mission to "provide the community with a positive image of the potential of human sexuality," the museum will exhibit erotic photography, sculptures and a wide variety of paintings from all eras. Some of the exhibits will include a Picasso etch, covers of gay adult magazines such as Manpower #4 and even stills of John Holmes taken from 8mm loops.
Boris Smorodinksy, the CEO of the Erotic Museum, notes that "you can?t talk about eroticism without talking about Marilyn," as he points out prints of the Marilyn Monroe photographs taken by Tom Kelley that were used to launch Playboy in December 1995.
The museum (http://www.theeroticmuseum.com/) even includes an adult mahjong video game from the Atari era and a video projection that documents stroke by stroke how Picasso etched Bloch 1762. Bloch 1762, a part of the museum?s permanent collection, is a single etch in a series of etches, many with sexual themes, known as Picasso?s Suite 347.
"We want to make this presentation entertaining. We?re in Hollywood and we want to be Hollywood. We want people to be excited about sex," Smorodinksy told AVN.com
The museum will also educate - one of the permanent exhibits will be the Hall of Fame, where portraits of notables such as Sigmund Freud, anthropologist Margaret Sanger, and Woody Allen, whom the museum credits with bringing sex to the course of mainstream conversations with his films and stand-up comedy act.
"We?d like to include Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt, who was one of the people fighting for the right to show naked women. Without him, we could not do this," said Smorodinksy.
The first four attractions start with the Sex and Technology exhibit, which includes items early films, phone sex recordings and surgical implants. The Natural History Gallery is where multimedia exhibits such as the aforementioned Picasso video projection and a Century of Sex display that includes hundreds of images from the last century will be center stage.
The Muse will include the photography of David LaChappelle and Carlos Batts, the large format prints of Felix Montez and pieces on loan from the Tom of Finland Foundation. And the Projection Room will first screen a 20-minute presentation of Maureen Fleming's work on film including Flight, The Sphere and Nude Descending Stairs. Fleming is a performance artist and modern dancer.
The museum will have a store that will eventually offer reproductions and prints of a number of the exhibits.
