Naomi Wilzig (1934-2015) collected more than 4000 pieces of erotic art. In 2005, she opened the World Erotic Art Museum (WEAM) in Miami Beach, Florida.
Videographer David Schuster from Berlin captured her fascinating story in a seven-minute video just before Naomi’s death on April 7, 2015.
Mission Statement
Founded in 2005 by Naomi Wilzig, WEAM is the only museum in the United States devoted exclusively to fine erotic art. In a remarkably short time for a still private collection, WEAM has developed one of the world’s most renowned permanent museums for this genre.
WEAM is a proud member of The WILZIG, an international place for art in the heart of South Beach in Miami.
Today, the WEAM Collection includes over 4000 works of international art, ranging from 300 BCE to the immediate present. In terms of its quality, diversity, and incomparable profile of erotic art, the WEAM stands out clearly from other museum collections.
Alongside its mission to familiarize the general public with erotic art, the WEAM’S other prime objective is the ongoing expansion of its Collection. We collect, preserve, and present works of erotic art of the highest quality from diverse cultures. We embrace our responsibility to engage and educate our community and to contribute to cultural knowledge of erotic art in history.
In 2017, WEAM, the Kinsey Institute, Bloomington, and Humboldt University in Berlin partnered for an exhibition presenting three unique and thought-provoking collections of artwork and material culture related to human sexuality.
- WEAM presents a reimagining of Naomi Wilzig’s groundbreaking private collection of erotic art. This new installation marks the first time the recent acquisitions will be presented to the public. Many of the works on display from Naomi Wilzig’s collection have never been seen before.
- “Kinsey Institute: Untold Stories” features artworks and points of view that have largely been kept out of mainstream sex culture. This exhibition provides a platform for marginalized stories, perspectives, and voices to be heard.
- A new gallery is dedicated to the work and collection of Magnus Hirschfeld, a German sex researcher whose art collection and library were burned by the Nazis in 1933.
Humboldt University in Berlin holds most of Hirschfeld’s archives, and his legacy influenced the collections of both Alfred Kinsey and Naomi Wilzig.
Founded on the Collection of Naomi Wilzig and with the help and warm support of the children and Grandchildren of the founder Naomi Wilzig, WEAM is today an ever growing institution devoted to erotic art.
Helmut Schuster
Director WEAM Miami
Partnerships
Alfred Charles Kinsey (1894-1956), an American biologist, was a pioneer of sex research. He authored books based on his studies of male and female behavior that helped usher in the “Sexual Revolution” of the 1960s. In 1947, Professor Kinsey established the Institute for Sex Research. Now known as the Kinsey Institute at the University of Indiana, it is the trusted source for critical issues in sexuality, gender, and reproduction.
Currently, WEAM is exhibiting a presentation about Dr. Kinsey and his studies.
The partnership between The Kinsey Institute and WEAM is a logical collaboration between two American institutions that focus on fostering understanding of human sexuality.
The Research Center for the Cultural History of Sexuality at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, is conducting a five-year research project (2017-2022) on the collection of Naomi Wilzig. The purpose of the project is the documentation, research, and exhibition of the collection. The aim is to make the objects and the collection history accessible to scientific research, to make the work of Naomi Wilzig known to a broader public, and to develop new formats of object-based learning in university education.
At the WEAM, the Research Center presents an exhibition on the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935), who opened the world’s first museum of sexuality at his Institute of Sexology in Berlin in 1919.
Florida International University (FIU) — College of Communication, Architecture, and the Arts (CARTA) has partnered with the WEAM through an endowment known as the Naomi Wilzig Art & Art History Endowment.
This endowment was inspired by the relationship between CARTA and the late Naomi Wilzig, former CARTA Advisory Board Member and Founder of the World Erotic Art Museum (WEAM), and Ivan Wilzig, current CARTA Advisory Board Member and co-owner of the WEAM.
The endowment supports students who, as part of their FIU studies, explore human sexuality as seen through the history of art. The endowment will provide student support for research, lectures, and other costs associated with the study.
The George Daniell Museum is devoted to the life’s work of George Daniell (1911-2002).
The photographs and paintings of the prominent photographer captured gay themes, glamorous celebrities, and scenes of everyday life in pre-and-post-war America. His works were featured in major magazines, including “Time,” “Life” and “Esquire,” and was also displayed in the Smithsonian, The Museum of Modern Art and the Chicago Institute of Art.
Presented by George Daniell Estate and ZentralDepot.org.