NYC Museums and Galleries
Three Edgy Stops in New York City

Let's take a walk on the wild side. Dozens of edgy NYC museums and galleries explore subjects like sexuality and the freedom of expression. The following describes three places open year round to teach about culture shunned by the mainstream.

The Most Colorful
and Radical Gallery in New York

More than 350 murals cover this 20,000-square-foot
"Graffiti Mecca." © Javier Ibanez

Emerging from beneath the No.7 subway line running above Long Island City, Queens is the 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center. More than 350 brightly colored New York graffiti murals wrap around the walls of this 20,000 square-foot complex. One is free to move around these former factory buildings and up sets of stairs to encounter a radiant atmosphere under any weather.

Along the way, it's not unusual to find graffiti artists at work to the sounds of hip-hop blaring from speakers. Hip-hop artists themselves and break-dancers have also performed on the grounds of 5pointz. Today, 5Pointz is the only property in Queens, NY, where graffiti artists can legally tag their minds. The work sprayed out from the aerosol cans of artists from around the world including the five boroughs, France, Brazil and Japan.

The art itself is just as diverse as the artists. Visitors can see murals of the Notorious B.I.G. and Superman among the tags of graffiti icons like Tats Cru and Stay High 49. However, the faces of 5Pointz don't stick around for long. Every few months, curator and former graffiti artist Jonathan "Meres One" Cohen provides qualifying artists with permits to spray fresh color on the walls where another person's work once resided. Nonetheless, it may soon be too late to visit 5Pointz. Property owner Jerry Wolkoff announced 5pointz will be demolished to make room for two residential towers with loft space for artists. Only a wall at the rear of one tower will remain as the home for future graffiti.

5Pointz is located at 45-46 Davis St., Long Island City, NY 11101.
Admission is free.
The Gallery is open Saturday through Sunday from noon to 7pmFor more information, visit the Five Pointz website.

Sex, Sex and more Sex

© Museum of Sex

The Museum of Sex offers visitors an unflinching look at sexuality through multiple exhibitions. The sights and sounds of sexual pleasure welcome visitors as soon as they step into the first exhibit, "Action: Sex and The Moving Image," which highlights 150 years of pornography. It features videos ranging from early porn to recent celebrity sex tapes. Fortunately, visitors who want to make their trip a hands-on experience are encouraged to touch, caress or even grope life size silicon sex dolls displayed in "Spotlight," which contains pieces form the museum's 15,000-plus permanent collection.

The journey gets wilder in "The Sex Life of Animals," which studies sex in the animal kingdom. It shows that animals masturbate and even have intercourse with the same sex for pleasure.

Beginning on February 9, 2012, however, one exhibition will bring the streets to the museum. "F*ck Art" will showcase a select group of street artists who will occupy the third floor gallery with the freedom to do whatever they want with the space to create their most provocative work. The artists' creative process will be on display as well during the course of two weeks. But, how explicit will their final products be? Well, the exhibit will replace "Obscene Diary," which explored the sex life of homosexual professor turned tattoo artist Samuel Steward. It displayed steward's own intimate material including explicit photos and his Stud File, an archive of note cards revealing his partners' penile dimensions and other details. Some cards even contained attached pieces of pubic hair.

Opening the same day as "F*ck Art" is "Universal Desire," which is based on the book "A Million Wicked Thoughts," by Dr. Ogi Ogas. The book studies sexual desire through searches on the internet's more than 2 million porn sites. "Universal Desires" will replace "Comics Stripped," a gallery which showcased animated pornography. The exhibit's walls were once covered with a mural featuring Disney characters enjoying a massive sex orgy in the woods.

After the trip, visitors can make their way to the bar in the basement or back to the museum's first-floor gift shop, which sells products like the 3-D penis book and the sex-position-a-day book.

The Museum of Sex is located on 233 Fifth Avenue and 27 St, New York, NY 10016.
Admission; Seniors and students get a discount.
Hours of operation are Sunday through Thursday from 10am to 8pm and Friday through Saturday from 10am to 9pm
For more information, visit the Museum of Sex website

Where Lesbians
and the Transgendered Own the Night

Heather Acs performing at the WOW Café Theatre's30th Anniversary show in 2010. The Brooklyn-based artist has performed in theatres across North America and Europe
© Heather Acs

The WOW Café Theater is a 14,000-square-foot loft space where lesbians and the transgendered express themselves through burlesque cabaret, belly dancing, musical performances, poetry, comedy and other forms of art.

Its website describes the theatre as a place that "welcomes diversity in sexuality and spirituality" and recognizes a "connection between all forms of oppression."

The theatre has no artistic director, and it welcomes artists regardless of economic status. Some of its shows are free, while others require a fee. Past performances have included the HyperGender Burlesque Cabaret featuring "Darlinda Just Darlinda," who was voted one of the 100 best burlesque dancers in the world. Hosted by producer JZ Bich, past HyperGender shows at the WOW theatre have promised to bring "a night of unholyness."

Another crowd-pleasing favorite at the WOW was "Coming out Muslim: Radical Acts of love," in which lesbian Muslims offered three evenings of poetry and storytelling regarding homosexuality and Islam.

"Everything is Hungry" was a dance performance exploring hungers that become eroticised. Gender roles, sexual expression and societal issues are common themes found in WOW café Theatre performances.

The WOW Cafe Theater is located at 59 East Fourth St. # 4W, New York, NY 10003.
For more information, including schedules for upcoming shows, visit
the WoW Cafe website.

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was born in Manhattan. Today, he has traded the BigApple for a small college town as he pursues his degree in Multimediajournalism at SUNY Plattsburgh. Interests include reading global news from various sources, going to the movies with friends and rocking out at concerts.

  

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