For the inaugural exhibition of the Museum of Sex’s new Miami location, Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama, known for his futurist sexy robot art, will present Desire Machine. The exhibition features 20 never-before-seen paintings as well as his iconic sculptures.
While a personal fan over here of his work. Something about Sorayama’s taking iconic moments and replacing the people with futuristic “sexy” androids always appealed to the ludicrous futurist in me, many galleries and museums have remained reticent of displaying his work. However, after his first creation was commissioned by a Japanese whiskey brand that requested a sexy female character loosely based on Star Wars’ C-3P0, Sorayama continued to explore the nature of human existence, including desire and reproduction in his works. Now, 40 years later, Sorayama has dozens of commissions, collaborations (Dior), books, exhibitions, and awards, all continually blurring the boundaries between realism and fantasy, flesh and metal, and human and non-human.
“Sorayama’s open-ended approach to sexual fantasy is particularly relevant now—when we are all cyborgs, when the real and the virtual are almost indistinguishable, and when sex robots, AI companions, and virtual celebrities are more science fact than fiction. Hajime Sorayama: Desire Machines provides an opportunity to contemplate what sexual agency, objectification, privacy, exhibitionism, exclusivity, and intimacy mean in our current digital moment,” said exhibition author Dr. Allison de Fren.
Desire Machines is currently showing at the Museum of Sex Miami.